ter pondered and hesitated, but at last hit upon a way to explain.

"Sir," said he, "until I was six years old they used to give me peaches
from Oddington House; but one fine day the supply stopped, and I uttered
a small howl to my nurse. Old John heard me, and told me Oddington was
sold, house, garden, estate, and all."

Colonel Clifford snorted.

Walter resumed, modestly but firmly:

"I was thirteen; I used to fish in a brook that ran near Drayton Park.
One day I was fishing there, when a brown velveteen chap stopped me, and
told me I was trespassing. 'Trespassing?' said I. 'I have fished here all
my life; I am Walter Clifford, and this belongs to my father.' 'Well,'
said the man, 'I've heerd it did belong to Colonel Clifford onst, but now
it belongs to Muster Mills; so you must fish in your own water, young
gentleman, and leave ourn to us as owns it.' Till I was eighteen I used
to shoot snipes in a rushy bottom near Calverley Church. One day a fellow
in black velveteen, and gaiters up to his middle, warned me out of that
in the name of Muster Cannon."

Colonel Clifford, who had been drumming on the table all this time,
looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They
have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact. Hang that fellow
Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault. Well,
sir, proceed with your observations."

"Well, I inquired who could afford to buy what we were too poor to keep,
and I found these wealthy purchasers were all in _trade_, not one of them
a gentleman."

"You might have guessed that," said Colonel Clifford: "it is as much as a
gentleman can do to live out of jail nowadays."

"Yes, sir," said Walter. "Cotton had bought one of these estates, tallow
another, and lucifer-matches the other."

"Plague take them all three!" roared the Colonel.

"Well, then, sir," said Walter, "I could not help thinking there must be
some magic in trade, and I had better go into it. I didn't think you
would consent to that. I wasn't game to defy you; so I did a meanish
thing, and slipped away into a merchant's office."

"And made your fortune in three months?" inquired the Colonel.

"No, I didn't; and don't think trade is the thing for _me_. I saw a deal
of avarice and meanness, and a thief of a clerk got his master to suspect
me of dishonesty; so I snapped my fingers at them all, and here I am.
But," said the poor young fellow, "I do wish, father, you would put