of keeping your own counsel. I prophesy
you'll be a successful man some day."

Christopher was not at all elated at the prospect. He was wondering
why Aymer drank no tea, also wondering how long the visitor meant to
stay. There seemed no sign of departing in him, so Christopher asked
if he might go and bury the guinea-pig with Vespasian's help. Aymer
nodded permission without speaking.

"A cute lad," remarked Mr. Masters; "what are you going to do with
him?"

"I do not know yet."

"Put him in the iron trade. 'Prentice him to me. There's something in
him. Did you say you didn't know who his father was?" He shot one of
his quick glances at Aymer.

The tortoise-shell paper-knife snapped in two. Aymer fitted the ends
together neatly.

"No, I didn't," he answered very deliberately. "I told you he was my
adopted son. I adopted him in order to have something to do."

"Oh, yes. Of course, of course." A slow smile spread over his big
face. "Think of Aymer Aston of all men in the world playing at being a
family man!"

He leant back in his chair and laughed out his great hearty laugh
whose boyish ring, coupled with the laugher's easy careless manners,
had snared so many fish into the financial net.

"They'd like to make a family man of me again--do their dear little
best--but I'm not such a fool as they think me. Men with brains and
ambitions don't want a wife. You miss less than you think, old chap,"
he went on with the colossal tactlessness habitual to him when his own
interests were not at stake; "a wife plays the devil with one's
business. I _know_." He nodded gloomily, the smile lost under a heavy
frown.

Aymer put down very carefully the broken toy he had been playing with.
Peter's elephantine tread was so great that it had almost overstepped
its victim. At all events Aymer gave no outward sign that he felt it
except in his deepened colour and a faint straightening of the lips.

"What on earth do you do with yourself?" went on Peter thoughtfully;
"the care of a kid like that doesn't absorb all your brains, I
know."

"What would you recommend me to do?" asked Aymer quietly.

"With your head for figures and your leisure you should take to the
Market. Have a machine and tapes fitted up in reach, and, by Jove! in
a quiet spot like this, out of the way of other men's panics and
nonsense, you could rule the world."

"The Market, I think you said."

"Same thing. Think of it, Aymer," he went on eagerly and genui