cads of the school chaffed surreptitiously about his
birth. They said he was the grandson of an agricultural labourer and the
son of a bank clerk; but only one of them, more caddish or more
courageous than the rest, said so to his face.

"I wouldn't mind if I was," said simple Jim, and was cheered by his
loyal little friends, Lord Amersham and others of the right kidney.

His father never came to see him when he was at school.

"I know why," sneered the enemy.

"Why, then?" flared Jim.

"He daren't. Give the show away."

After that the lad gave his enemy a sound hiding, and peace reigned. The
bounders might say he was a bounder, but they had to admit that he could
give and take punishment with the best.

* * * * *

He left Eton absolutely unspoilt.

A year before the lad quitted the school his father sent for him.

"I didn't want you to go to Eton, Jim," he said. "I'm glad now. Do you
want to go on to Oxford?"

The boy thought; and when his reply came it was honest as himself.

"All my friends are going," he said. "I should like it for that reason.
But I don't know that I should get much out of it."

"Go for a year," said his father. "See what you make of it. If you're
getting any good of it, you can go on. If not, we'll see."

The boy did not leave the room.

His interviews with his father were rare; and there was a question he
had long wished to ask.

Now he blurted it out.

"Am I to go into the Bank, father?"

The old man blinked at his son over his spectacles, and then shoved back
his chair.

"What d'you want?" he asked.

"I should like the Army, or to farm," replied the son.

Mr. Silver put down his paper.

It was some time before he answered.

"The Bank's my life," he said at last. "You're my son. You may choose
for yourself." He drummed with his fingers on the table; and Jim left
the room.

* * * * *

When the half-breeds, as Lord Amersham called them, jeered at Silver as
the son of an agricultural labourer there was a modicum of truth at the
back of the lie.

The boy came of a long line of yeoman-farmers in Leicestershire, famous
for generations for their stock and their integrity.

Jim Silver's grandfather was the last of that line. He was a big man and
big farmer, husbanding his wide acres wisely and well, breeding good
stock, enjoying his day's hunting, but not making too much of it,
touching his hat to his landl