ldest,' but I explained to
him that it was Dicky's idea, so my being eldest didn't matter. Then he
said to Dicky--'You are a minor, I presume?'

Dicky said he wasn't yet, but he had thought of being a mining engineer
some day, and going to Klondike.

'Minor, not miner,' said the G. B. 'I mean you're not of age?'

'I shall be in ten years, though,' said Dicky. 'Then you might repudiate
the loan,' said the G. B., and Dicky said 'What?'

Of course he ought to have said 'I beg your pardon. I didn't quite catch
what you said'--that is what Oswald would have said. It is more polite
than 'What.'

'Repudiate the loan,' the G. B repeated. 'I mean you might say you would
not pay me back the money, and the law could not compel you to do so.'

'Oh, well, if you think we're such sneaks,' said Dicky, and he got
up off his chair. But the G. B. said, 'Sit down, sit down; I was only
joking.'

Then he talked some more, and at last he said--'I don't advise you to
enter into that partnership. It's a swindle. Many advertisements are.
And I have not a hundred pounds by me to-day to lend you. But I will
lend you a pound, and you can spend it as you like. And when you are
twenty-one you shall pay me back.'

'I shall pay you back long before that,' said Dicky. 'Thanks, awfully!
And what about the note of hand?'

'Oh,' said the G. B., 'I'll trust to your honour. Between gentlemen, you
know--and ladies'--he made a beautiful bow to Alice--'a word is as good
as a bond.'

Then he took out a sovereign, and held it in his hand while he talked
to us. He gave us a lot of good advice about not going into business
too young, and about doing our lessons--just swatting a bit, on our own
hook, so as not to be put in a low form when we went back to school. And
all the time he was stroking the sovereign and looking at it as if he
thought it very beautiful. And so it was, for it was a new one. Then at
last he held it out to Dicky, and when Dicky put out his hand for it the
G. B. suddenly put the sovereign back in his pocket.

'No,' he said, 'I won't give you the sovereign. I'll give you fifteen
shillings, and this nice bottle of scent. It's worth far more than the
five shillings I'm charging you for it. And, when you can, you shall pay
me back the pound, and sixty per cent interest--sixty per cent, sixty
per cent.'

'What's that?' said H. O.

The G. B. said he'd tell us that when we paid back the sovereign, but
sixty per cent was nothing to be