e-lookin'
chap, old Tod--pity he's such a child of Nature."

Felix said quietly:

"If you'd offered him a partnership, Stanley--it would have been the
making of him."

"Tod in the plough works? My hat!"

Felix smiled. At sight of that smile, Stanley grew red, and John
refilled his pipe. It is always the devil to have a brother more
sarcastic than oneself!

"How old are those two?" John said abruptly.

"Sheila's twenty, Derek nineteen."

"I thought the boy was at an agricultural college?"

"Finished."

"What's he like?"

"A black-haired, fiery fellow, not a bit like Tod."

John muttered: "That's her Celtic blood. Her father, old Colonel Moray,
was just that sort; by George, he was a regular black Highlander. What's
the trouble exactly?"

It was Stanley who answered: "That sort of agitation business is all
very well until it begins to affect your neighbors; then it's time it
stopped. You know the Mallorings who own all the land round Tod's. Well,
they've fallen foul of the Mallorings over what they call injustice
to some laborers. Questions of morality involved. I don't know all the
details. A man's got notice to quit over his deceased wife's sister;
and some girl or other in another cottage has kicked over--just ordinary
country incidents. What I want is that Tod should be made to see that
his family mustn't quarrel with his nearest neighbors in this way. We
know the Mallorings well, they're only seven miles from us at Becket. It
doesn't do; sooner or later it plays the devil all round. And the air's
full of agitation about the laborers and 'the Land,' and all the rest of
it--only wants a spark to make real trouble."

And having finished this oration, Stanley thrust his hands deep into his
pockets, and jingled the money that was there.

John said abruptly:

"Felix, you'd better go down."

Felix was sitting back, his eyes for once withdrawn from his brothers'
faces.

"Odd," he said, "really odd, that with a perfectly unique person like
Tod for a brother, we only see him once in a blue moon."

"It's because he IS so d--d unique."

Felix got up and gravely extended his hand to Stanley.

"By Jove," he said, "you've spoken truth." And to John he added: "Well,
I WILL go, and let you know the upshot."

When he had departed, the two elder brothers remained for some moments
silent, then Stanley said:

"Old Felix is a bit tryin'! With the fuss they make of him in the
papers, his head's swelled!"

J