CHAP. xx. SELLS HIS FOSSILS. 335 



them up to Jermyn Street Museum, that he might give 

 for them whatever he thinks them worth. 



" Surely there is no degradation in this idea.* It 

 was altogether out of the question to allow the amount 

 of my loss to fall upon you. No ! I will not do that. 

 But if you put in a good word for me with Sir 

 Eoderick about these fossils, I shall feel grateful to 

 you. 



" The fossils are not many, but they are such as Sir 

 Eoderick has not in his Museum. 



" P.S. If Sir Roderick Murchison declines to pur- 

 chase my fossils, I'll not be beat, but will offer them to 

 some other person." 



At last the matter was pleasantly settled. Mr. 

 Miller at once agreed to purchase the fossils, and sent 

 Dick an order on the National Bank for 46, the 

 amount of his loss by the shipwrecked flour. Dick 

 cordially acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Miller's 

 letter : 



"I thank you most sincerely. I have to-day (4th 

 April) received a note from Sir Roderick Murchison. 

 He will take the fossils ; but I have settled it in my 

 mind to give them to you. I am afraid that I grieved 

 you by refusing your gift, but I could not, poor as I am, 

 take so much money for nothing. I will give all my 

 fossils to you every one of them shells of the boulder 

 clay and all. There are two or three which Hugh 



* Sir Roderick had asked Dick several years before to sell come of 

 his rarer fossils to the Museum, but Dick preferred making a present 

 of them. 



