"They can afford to," he returned. "They get every bit of pull there is to
have. I told you we've been tenants of the Home Farm ever since there's
been a Home Farm, but old Jervaise could turn my father out any time, at
six months' notice. Would, too. Probably have to, for the sake of public
opinion. Well, would you call that playing fair?"

"I shouldn't," I said with emphasis.

"Most people would," he replied gloomily. I was wondering what his own
"pull" might be, the pull he would not use because the use of it
conflicted with his ideal of playing the game. I was inclined, with a
foolish romanticism to toy with the notion of some old blood relationship
between the families of Jervaise and Banks--some carefully hidden scandal
that might even throw a doubt on the present owner's right of
proprietorship. I was still rebuilding that foolish, familiar story of the
lost heir, when my new friend put an end to further speculation by
saying,--

"But what's the good of thinking about that--yet? Why, I don't even
know..."

I could not resist a direct question this time. "Don't even know what?" I
asked.

"I was forgetting," he said. He got to his feet again, looked round for a
moment, and then gave a yawn which seemed to spring from a nervous rather
than a muscular origin.

"No good my compromising you, just now," he said with a friendly smile.
"You've probably guessed more, already, than'll be altogether convenient