But, if he did, the knowledge that he did came to him only after a
certain delay. It was my privilege to watch this knowledge steal
gradually but surely upon him.

We were always together; and as the days passed by he spoke freely of
himself and his affairs, obeying unconsciously the rudder of my tactful
inquisitiveness. By the end of the first week I knew as much about him
as he did himself.

It seemed that a guardian--an impersonal sort of business man with a
small but impossible family--was the most commanding figure in his
private life. As for his finances, five-and-forty sovereigns, the
remnant of a larger sum which had paid for his education at Cambridge,
stood between him and the necessity of offering for hire a sketchy
acquaintance with general literature and a third class in the classical
tripos.

He had come to Guernsey to learn by personal observation what chances
tomato growing held out to a young man in a hurry to get rich.

"Tomato growing?" I echoed dubiously. And then, to hide a sense of
bathos, "People _have_ made it pay. Of course, they work very
hard."

"M'yes," said James without much enthusiasm.

"But I fancy," I added, "the life is not at all unpleasant."

At this point embarrassment seemed to engulf James. He blushed,
swallowed once or twice in a somewhat convulsive manner, and stammered.