When the secret of the "Oxford Graduate" leaked out, as it did very soon, through the proud father, Mr.John was lionized.

During the winter of 1843 he met celebrities at fashionable dinner-tables; and now that his parents were established in their grander house on Denmark Hill,[1] they could duly return the hospitalities of the great world.
[Footnote 1: To which they removed in October, 1842.] It was one very satisfactory result of the success that the father was more or less converted to Turnerism, and lined his walls with Turner drawings, which became the great attraction of the house, far outshining its seven acres of garden and orchard and shrubbery, and the ampler air of cultured ease.

For a gift to his son he bought "The Slave Ship," one of Turner's latest and most disputed works; and he was all eagerness to see the next volume in preparation.
It was intended to carry on the discussion of "Truth," with further illustrations of mountain-form, trees and skies.

And so in May, 1844, they all went away again, that the artist-author might prepare drawings for his plates.

He was going to begin with the geology and botany of Chamouni, and work through the Alps, eastward.
At Chamouni they had the good fortune to meet with Joseph Coutet, a superannuated guide, whom they engaged to accompany the eager but inexperienced mountaineer.