ar has done for the refiners, but it's a
fortune for the jam trade. Why not put all we can realize into a jam
factory? We'll go down into the country; find some delightful place
where land is cheap; start a fruit farm; run up a building. Doesn't it
take you, Will? Think of going to business every day through lanes
overhung with fruit-tree blossoms! Better that than the filth and
stench and gloom and uproar of Whitechapel--what? We might found a
village for our workpeople--the ideal village, perfectly healthy, every
cottage beautiful. Eh? What? How does it strike you, Will?"

"Pleasant. But the money?"

"We shall have enough to start; I think we shall. If not, we'll find a
moneyed man to join us."

"What about that ten thousand pounds?" suggested Warburton.

Sherwood shook his head.

"Can't get it just yet. To tell you the truth, it depends on the death
of the man's father. No, but if necessary, some one will easily be
found. Isn't the idea magnificent? How it would rile the Government if
they heard of it! Ho, ho!"

One could never be sure how far Godfrey was serious when he talked like
this; the humorous impulse so blended with the excitability of his
imagination, that people who knew him little and heard him talking at
large thought him something of a crack-brain. The odd thing was that,
with all his peculiarities, he had many of the characteristics of a
sound man of business; indeed, had it been otherwise, the
balance-sheets of the refinery must long ago have shown a disastrous
deficit. As Warburton knew, things had been managed with no little
prudence and sagacity; what he did not so clearly understand was that
Sherwood had simply adhered to the traditions of the firm, following
very exactly the path marked out for him by his father and his uncle,
both notable traders. Concerning Godfrey's private resources, Warburton
knew little or nothing; it seemed probable that the elder Sherwood had
left a considerable fortune, which his only son must have inherited. No
doubt, said Will to himself, this large reserve was the explanation of
his partner's courage.

So the St. Kitts estate was sold, and, with all the deliberate dignity
demanded by the fact that the Government's eye was upon them, Sherwood
Brothers proceeded to terminate their affairs in Whitechapel. In July,
Warburton took his three weeks' holiday, there being nothing better for
him to do. And among the letters he found on his table when he
returned, was o