"I've understood," said Isbister after a pause, "that he had some
moderate property of his own?"

"That is so," said Warming. He coughed primly. "As it happens--I have
charge of it."

"Ah!" Isbister thought, hesitated and spoke: "No doubt--his keep here is
not expensive--no doubt it will have improved--accumulated?"

"It has. He will wake up very much better off--if he wakes--than when
he slept."

"As a business man," said Isbister, "that thought has naturally been in
my mind. I have, indeed, sometimes thought that, speaking commercially,
of course, this sleep may be a very good thing for him. That he knows
what he is about, so to speak, in being insensible so long. If he had
lived straight on--"

"I doubt if he would have premeditated as much," said Warming. "He was
not a far-sighted man. In fact--"

"Yes?"

"We differed on that point. I stood to him somewhat in the relation of a
guardian. You have probably seen enough of affairs to recognise that
occasionally a certain friction--. But even if that was the case, there
is a doubt whether he will ever wake. This sleep exhausts slowly, but it
exhausts. Apparently he is sliding slowly, very slowly and tediously,
down a long slope, if you can understand me?"