ense," said my aunt, suddenly; and this aroused us; "it's a poky
hole, as I told her it would be. Let her thank the Lord she's got a
man clever enough to get her out of it. I know him; he never could rest
where he was put. Now he's at the bottom; he'll go up."

It sounded to me a very disagreeable speech; but the grey man laughed--I
had not heard him laugh till then--and my mother ran to my aunt and
kissed her; and somehow the room seemed to become lighter.

For some reason I slept downstairs that night, on the floor, behind a
screen improvised out of a clothes horse and a blanket; and later in the
evening the clatter of knives and forks and the sound of subdued voices
awoke me. My aunt had apparently gone to bed; my mother and the man in
grey were talking together over their supper.

"We must buy land," said the voice of the grey man; "London is coming
this way. The Somebodies" (I forget the name my father mentioned) "made
all their money by buying up land round New York for a mere song. Then,
as the city spread, they became worth millions."

"But where will you get the money from, Luke?" asked the voice of my
mother.

The voice of the grey man answered airily:

"Oh, that's merely a matter of business. You grant a mortgage. The
property goes up in value. You borrow more. Then you buy more--and so
on."

"I see," said my mother.

"Being on the spot gives one such an advantage," said the grey man. "I
shall know just when to buy. It's a great thing, being on the spot."

"Of course, it must be," said my mother.

I suppose I must have dozed, for the next words I heard the grey man say
were:

"Of course you have the park opposite, but then the house is small."

"But shall we need a very large one?" asked my mother.

"One never knows," said the grey man. "If I should go into Parliament--"

At this point a hissing sound arose from the neighbourhood of the fire.

"It _looks_," said my mother, "as if it were done."

"If you will hold the dish," said the grey man, "I think I can pour it
in without spilling."

Again I must have dozed.

"It depends," said the grey man, "upon what he is going to be. For the
classics, of course, Oxford."

"He's going to be very clever," said my mother. She spoke as one who
knows.

"We'll hope so," said the grey man.

"I shouldn't be surprised," said my mother, "if he turned out a poet."

The grey man said something in a low tone that I did not hear.

"I'm not so sure," ans