grown into a
fine-looking fellow, like your father, very, and someone else too," and
he sighed, running his fingers through his grizzled hair. "But you don't
remember her; she was before your time. Now let us get to business;
there's no time for reminiscences in this office. What is it, Alan, for
like other people I suppose that you want something?"

"It is about that Sahara flotation, Mr. Jackson," he began rather
doubtfully.

The old editor's face darkened. "The Sahara flotation! That
accursed----" and he ceased abruptly. "What have you, of all people in
the world, got to do with it? Oh! I remember. Someone told me that you
had gone into partnership with Aylward the company promoter, and that
little beast, Champers-Haswell, who really is the clever one. Well, set
it out, set it out."

"It seems, Mr. Jackson, that _The Judge_ has refused not only our
article, but also the advertisement of the company. I don't know much
about this side of the affair myself, but Sir Robert asked me if I would
come round and see if things couldn't be arranged."

"You mean that the man sent you to try and work on me because he knew
that I used to be intimate with your family. Well, it is a poor errand
and will have a poor end. You can't--no one on earth can, while I sit in
this chair, not even my proprietors."

There was silence broken at last by Alan, who remarked awkwardly:

"If that is so, I must not take up your time any longer."

"I said that I would give you a quarter of an hour, and you have only
been here four minutes. Now, Alan Vernon, tell me as your father's old
friend, why you have gone to herd with these gilded swine?"

There was something so earnest about the man's question that it did not
even occur to his visitor to resent its roughness.

"Of course it is not original," he answered, "but I had this idea about
flooding the Desert; I spent a furlough up there a few years ago and
employed my time in making some rough surveys. Then I was obliged to
leave the Service and went down to Yarleys after my father's death--it's
mine now, you know, but worth nothing except a shooting rent, which just
pays for the repairs. There I met Champers-Haswell, who lives near
and is a kind of distant cousin of mine--my mother was a Champers--and
happened to mention the thing to him. He took it up at once and
introduced me to Aylward, and the end of it was, that they offered me a
partnership with a small share in the business, because t