fy lay on the sofa thinking, his arm thrown above his head in the
attitude that was characteristic of him during the many weeks of
illness that he usually had in the year.

'I can't think why,' he said, 'you should go yourself. There must be
plenty of lawyers in Buenos Ayres who would undertake to see the thing
through for you.'

'Well, come,' said Peter, 'if my brother has been done out of the place
for twenty-five years, and if he is a good chap, and all that, I
suppose the least one could do would be to try and look as if one
didn't grudge giving him back his own.'

Probably there is an element of fairness about English men and women
which obtrudes itself from time to time to their disadvantage; and
Peter already found himself occupying, in his own mind at least, the
position of the younger son.

'We will brave the terrors of the vasty deep together,' said Toffy;
'it's no use your going alone.'

'You ain't up to it,' said Peter gruffly, 'thanks all the same, old
chap.'

'I must fly somewhere,' said Toffy, 'it doesn't much matter where.'

'Has the usual acute financial crisis come?' Peter said, looking
affectionately at the long, thin figure on the sofa. 'You can't the
least deceive me into thinking you had better go into Argentine to hunt
for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. It isn't good
enough!'

'I shall have to get a lot of boots,' said Toffy thoughtfully; 'it
seems the right sort of thing to do when one is starting on an
expedition, and I would rather like to get some of those knives that
fellows seem to buy when they go out to South America.'

'You see,' objected Peter, allowing the question of boots and
hunting-knives to lapse, 'the place is right enough, I have no doubt,
but it's pretty big, and I don't a bit know what is in front of me. I
'll tell you what I will do, though, I 'll send for you as soon as I
get there if I find it's a white man's country at all, and then we will
jog round together.'

'I suppose we couldn't go in a yacht?' said Toffy, inspired with a
sudden suggestion, and sitting up on the sofa full of grave interest.
'There 'd be much less chance of being copped on the pier than if one
travelled on a liner. Another thing, I 'm not at all sure that a yacht
wouldn't be a good investment; it really is the only way to live
economically and keep out of the reach of duns at the same time. A
nice little eighty-tonner now, for instance, with Just two or three
hand