an and his sturdy grandchild were rare intimates, and never so
happy as when wandering together about the yards and farm-buildings and
pastures, the child, silent and absorbed, as he clutched his grand-dad's
big brown finger.

The pair did not talk much: they were too content. But there was one
often-repeated conversation which took place between them as they
strolled.

"What goin' to be when you grows up, Jim?"

"Farmer."

"What shall ye breed?"

"Shire-'osses."

The child came back always from those prolonged visits with the sun on
his cheeks, the strength in his limbs, and Leicestershire broad upon his
tongue; and he never understood why his mother cut his visits short on
every imaginable pretext.

At Eton the lad's friends were almost all drawn from the families in
whose blood, after generations of possession, the land and its
belongings had become a real if somewhat perverted passion. They would
sit on into the twilight in each other's studies and ramble on
interminably and with the exaggerated wisdom of seventeen about the
subject nearest to their youthful hearts.

Sometimes Mr. Bromhead would look in, grim and gray behind his
spectacles.

"Talking horses as usual, Jim, I suppose," he would say.

"And dog, sir," corrected young Amersham.

"With an occasional shorthorn chucked in to tip the scale," added old
Sir Evelyn's fair grandson.

* * * * *

When Brazil Silver died, the year his son was the heavy-weight in the
Oxford boat, he left a will which was in accordance with his life.

Every penny he had--and he had a good many, as the Chancellor of the
Exchequer remarked in the House of Commons--was tied up in the Bank, and
to remain there.

It was all left to his son. "I can trust him to see to his mother," ran
the will, written on half a sheet of paper, "and to any dependents.
Charities I loathe."

The son was free to save anything he liked from his vast income, but the
capital must stay in the Bank.

The old man made no condition that Jim should enter the Bank, and
expressed no wish to that effect. His friends, therefore, speculated
what Jim would do.

They might have spared themselves the trouble. He left Oxford, in spite
of the protests of the Captain of the boat, who spent a vain but hectic
week pointing out to the apostate the path of duty, which was also the
path of glory, and went into the Bank.

His reasoning, as always, was simple and to the point.