remember father gave me a new ten-pound note when I interrupted him
whilst he was telling me of the incident of young St. Leger's
improvidence by remarking that he was in error as to the land. From
what I had heard of MacKelpie's estate, it was productive of one
thing; when he asked me "What?" I answered "Mortgages!" Father, I
knew, had bought, not long before, a lot of them at what a college
friend of mine from Chicago used to call "cut-throat" price. When I
remonstrated with my father for buying them at all, and so injuring
the family estate which I was to inherit, he gave me an answer, the
astuteness of which I have never forgotten.

"I did it so that I might keep my hand on the bold General, in case
he should ever prove troublesome. And if the worst should ever come
to the worst, Croom is a good country for grouse and stags!" My
father can see as far as most men!

When my cousin--I shall call him cousin henceforth in this record,
lest it might seem to any unkind person who might hereafter read it
that I wished to taunt Rupert St. Leger with his somewhat obscure
position, in reiterating his real distance in kinship with my family-
-when my cousin, Rupert St. Leger, wished to commit a certain idiotic
act of financial folly, he approached my father on the subject,
arriving at our estate, Humcroft, at an inconvenient time, without
permission, not having had even the decent courtesy to say he was
coming. I was then a little chap of six years old, but I could not
help noticing his mean appearance. He was all dusty and dishevelled.
When my father saw him--I came into the study with him--he said in a
horrified voice:

"Good God!" He was further shocked when the boy brusquely