he said. "It was kind of
you, Wayward; I don't know how to tell you how kind--but your boat's a
corker and you are another--"

"Do you like this sort of thing?" asked Wayward grimly.

"Like it? It's only a part of your ordinary lives--yours and Portlaw's;
so you are not quite fitted to understand. But, Wayward, I've been in
heavy harness. You have been doing this sort of heavenly thing--how many
years?"

"Too many. Tell me; you've really made good this last year, haven't you,
Garry?"

Hamil nodded. "I had to."

He laid his hand on the older man's arm. "Why do you know," he said,
"when they gave me that first commission for the little park at Hampton
Hills--thanks to you--I hadn't five dollars in all the world."

Wayward stood looking at him through his spectacles, absently pulling at
his moustache, which was already partly gray.

"Garry," he said in his deep, pleasant voice that was however never very
clear, "Portlaw tells me that you are to do his place. Then there are
the new parks in Richmond Borough, and this enormous commission down
here among the snakes and jungles. Well--God bless you. You're
twenty-five and busy. I'm forty-five and"--he looked drearily into the
younger man's eyes--"burnt out," he said with his mirthless laugh--"and
still drenching the embers with the same stuff that set 'em ablaze....
Good-bye, Garry. Your boat's alongside. My compliments to your aunt."

At the gangway the younger man bade adieu to Malcourt and Portlaw,
laughing as the latter indignantly requested to know why Hamil wasted
his time attending to business.

Malcourt drew him aside:

"So you're going to rig up a big park and snake preserve for Neville
Cardross?"

"I'm going to try, Louis. You know the family, I believe, don't you?"

Malcourt gazed placidly at him. "Very well indeed," he replied
deliberately. "They're a, good, domestic, mother-pin-a-rose-on-me sort
of family.... I'm a sort of distant cousin--run of the house and
privilege of kissing the girls--not now, but once. I'm going to stay
there when we get back from Miami."

"You didn't tell me that?" observed Hamil, surprised.

"No," said Malcourt carelessly, "I didn't know it myself. Just made up
my mind to do it. Saves hotel expenses. Well--your cockle-shell is
waiting. Give my regards to the family--particularly to Shiela." He
looked curiously at Hamil; "particularly to Shiela," he repeated; but
Hamil missed the expression of his eyes in the dusk.

"A