"No; the grand old mansion, though much dilapidated, with its park,
though stripped of salable timber, was still left with a rental from
farms that still appertained to the residence, which would have sufficed
a prudent man for the luxuries of life, and allowed a reserve fund to
clear off the mortgages gradually. Abstinence and self-denial for one or
two generations would have made a property, daily rising in value as the
metropolis advanced to its outskirts, a princely estate for a third. But
Robert Haughton, though not on the turf, had a grand way of living; and
while Guy Darrell went into the law to make a small patrimony a large
fortune, your father, my dear young sir, was put into the Guards to
reduce a large patrimony--into Mr. Cox's distillery."

Lionel coloured, but remained silent.

Fairthorn, who was as unconscious in his zest of narrator that he was
giving pain as an entomologist in his zest for collecting when he pins a
live moth in his cabinet, resumed: "Your father and Guy Darrell were warm
friends as boys and youths. Guy was the elder of the two, and Charlie
Haughton (I beg your pardon, he was always called Charlie) looked up to
him as to an elder brother. Many's the scrape Guy got him out of; and
many a pound, I believe, when Guy had some funds of his own, did Guy lend
to Charlie."

"I am very sorry to hear that," said Lionel, sharply. Fairthorn looked
frightened. "I 'm afraid I have made a blunder. Don't tell Mr.
Darrell."

"Certainly not; I promise. But how came my father to need this aid, and
how came they at last to quarrel?"