"Why should I?" Wingrave asked coldly.

"It would amuse me," Aynesworth answered, "and I've come a mile or so
out of my way, and given up a whole morning to come and see you. Go
on! It won't take long!"

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"I will not remind you," he said, "that you came on your own
initiative. I owe you the idea, however, so I will tell you the sort
of person I shall look out for. In the first place, I do not require
him to be a gentleman."

"I can be a shocking bounder at times," Aynesworth murmured.

"He must be more a sort of an upper servant," Wingrave continued. "I
should require him to obey me implicitly, whatever I told him to do.
You have a conscience, I presume?"

"Very little," Aynesworth answered. "I have been a journalist."

"You have the remnants of one, at all events," Wingrave said, "quite
sufficient, no doubt, to interfere with your possible usefulness to
me. I must have someone who is poor--too poor to question my will, or
to dispute my orders, whatever they might be."

"I have never," Aynesworth declared, "possessed a superfluous
half-crown in my life."

"You probably possess what is called a sense of honor," Wingrave