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 acknowledged, in reply to my father's greeting, that he had travelled third class.