" continued Lionel. "Before my uncle died, I knew how
necessary it was that they should be made, and I as much believed that
I should set about them the instant I came into the estate, as that I
believe I am now talking to you. But you see I did not begin them. It
has taught me to be chary of making assertions beforehand."

"I suppose you think you'd do it?"

"If I know anything of my own resolution I should do it. Were Verner's
Pride to lapse to me to-morrow, I believe I should set about it the next
day. But," Lionel added after a short pause, "there's no probability of
its lapsing to me. Therefore I want you to set about it in my place."

"I can't afford it," replied John Massingbird.

"Nonsense! I wish I could afford things a quarter as well as you."

"I tell you I can't," reiterated John, taking his pipe from his mouth to
make a spittoon of the carpet--another convenience he had learned at the
diggings. "I'm sure I don't know how on earth my money goes; I never did
know all my life how money went; but, go it does. When Fred and I were
little chaps, some benevolent old soul tipped us half a crown apiece.
Mine was gone by middle-day, and I could not account for more than
ninepence of it--never could to this day. Fred, at the end of a
twelvemonth's time, had got his half-crown still snug in his pocket. Had
Fred come into Verner's Pride, he'd have lived in style on a thousand of
his income yearly, and put by the rest."

He never would, Sibylla being his wife, thought Lionel. But he did not
say it to John Massingbird.

"An estate, such as this, brings its duties with it, John," said he.
"Remember those poor people down with sickness."

"Bother duty," returned John. "Look here, Lionel; you waste your breath
and your words. I have _not_ got the money to spend upon it; how do you
know, old fellow, what my private expenses may be? And if I had the
money, I should not do it," he continued. "The present state of the
property was deemed good enough by Mr. Verner; it was so deemed (if we
may judge by facts) by Mr. Lionel Verner; and it is deemed good enough
by John Massingbird. It is not he who's going to have the cost thrown
upon him. So let it drop."

There was no resource but to let it drop; for that he was in full
earnest, Lionel saw. John continued--

"You can save up the alterations for yourself, to be commenced when you
come into the property. A nice _bonne bouche_ of outlay for you to
contemplate."

"I don't