odora. To Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia it
was the land of Thule, "the furthest boundaries of which no man has
reached." On rainy Sunday afternoons they played in the great, gloomy
pressroom, where silent ogres, standing motionless, stretched out iron
arms to seize them as they ran. Then just when Nathaniel George was
eight, and Janet Helvetia four and a half, Hezekiah launched the
celebrated "Grindley's Sauce." It added a relish to chops and steaks,
transformed cold mutton into a luxury, and swelled the head of Hezekiah
Grindley--which was big enough in all conscience as it was--and
shrivelled up his little hard heart. The Grindleys and the Appleyards
visited no more. As a sensible fellow ought to have seen for himself, so
thought Hezekiah, the Sauce had altered all things. The possibility of a
marriage between their children, things having remained equal, might have
been a pretty fancy; but the son of the great Grindley, whose name in
three-foot letters faced the world from every hoarding, would have to
look higher than a printer's daughter. Solomon, a sudden and vehement
convert to the principles of mediaeval feudalism, would rather see his
only child, granddaughter of the author of _The History of Kettlewell_
and other works, dead and buried than married to a grocer's son, even
though he might inherit a fortune made out of poisoning the public with a
mixture of mustard and sour beer. It was many years before Nathaniel
George and Janet Helvetia met one another again, and when they did they
had forgotten one another.

* * * * *

Hezekiah S. Grindley, a short, stout, and pompous gentleman, sat under a
palm in the gorgeously furnished drawing-room of his big house at Notting
Hill. Mrs. Grindley, a thin, faded woman, the despair of her dressmaker,
sat as near to the fire as its massive and imposing copper outworks would
permit, and shivered. Grindley junior, a fair-haired, well-shaped youth,
with eyes that the other sex found attractive, leant with his hands in
his pockets against a scrupulously robed statue of Diana, and appeared
uncomfortable.

"I'm making the money--making it hand over fist. All you'll have to do
will be to spend it," Grindley senior was explaining to his son and heir.

"I'll do that all right, dad."

"I'm not so sure of it," was his father's opinion. "You've got to prove
yourself worthy to spend it. Don't you think I shall be content to have
slaved all these years merely to p