popular, old Willie!"

"And Alan? I haven't heard anything of him since his Peruvian thing came
to grief. He married, didn't he?"

"Rather! One of the Burleys. Nice girl--heiress; lot of property in
Hampshire. He looks after it for her now."

"Doesn't do anything else, I suppose?"

"Keeps up his antiquarianism."

I had exhausted the members of his family.

Then, as though by eliciting the good fortunes of his brothers I had cast
some slur upon himself, he said suddenly: "If the railway had come, as it
ought to have, while I was out there, I should have done quite well with
my fruit farm."

"Of course," I agreed; "it was bad luck. But after all, you're sure to
get a job soon, and--so long as you can live up there with your aunt--you
can afford to wait, and not bother."

"Yes," he murmured. And I got up.

"Well, it's been very jolly to hear about you all!"

He followed me out.

"Awfully glad, old man," he said, "to have seen you, and had this talk.