ng Granton insisted on remaining at the
Cromarty Arms, though he told us his wife would be delighted to
receive a call from Lady Vandrift and Mrs. Wentworth. So we all
returned with him to bring the Honourable Mrs. Granton up to tea
at the Castle.

She was a nice little thing, very shy and timid, but by no means
unpresentable, and an evident lady. She giggled at the end of every
sentence; and she was endowed with a slight squint, which somehow
seemed to point all her feeble sallies. She knew little outside
South Africa; but of that she talked prettily; and she won all
our hearts, in spite of the cast in her eye, by her unaffected
simplicity.

Next morning Charles and I had a regular debate with young Granton
about the rival options. Our talk was of cyanide processes,
reverberatories, pennyweights, water-jackets. But it dawned upon us
soon that, in spite of his red hair and his innocent manners, our
friend, the Honourable David Granton, knew a thing or two. Gradually
and gracefully he let us see that Lord Craig-Ellachie had sent him
for the benefit of the company, but that _he_ had come for the
benefit of the Honourable David Granton.

"I'm a younger son, Sir Charles," he said; "and therefore I have to
feather my nest for myself. I know the ground. My father will be
guided implicitly by what I advise in the matter. We are men of the
world. Now, let's be business-like. _You_ want to amalgamate. You
wouldn't do that, of course, if you didn't know of something to the
advantage of my father's company--say, a lode on our land--which you
hope to secure for yourself by amalgamation. Very well; _I_ can make
or mar your project. If you choose to render it worth my while, I'll
induce my father and his directors to amalgamate. If you don't, I
won't. That's the long and the short of it!"

Charles looked at him admiringly.

"Young man," he said, "you're deep, very deep--for your age. Is this
candour--or deception? Do you mean what you say? Or do you know some
reason why it suits your father's book to amalgamate as well as it
suits mine? And are you trying to keep it from me?" He fingered his
chin. "If I only knew that," he went on, "I should know how to deal
with you."

Young Granton smiled again. "You're a financier, Sir Charles," he
answered. "I wonder, at your time of life, you should pause to ask
another financier whether he's trying to fill his own pocket--or his
father's. Whatever is my father's goes to his eldest son-