"Last year he seemed to walk in just when he liked, as though he were one of us." "He's a bad sort of fellow," said Grindley; "he's so uncommonly dark.
I don't know where on earth he gets his money from, He was heir to some small property in the north, but he lost every shilling of that when he was in the wine trade." "You're wrong there, Grindems," said Maxwell,--making use of a playful nickname which he had invented for his friend.

"He made a pot of money at the wine business, and had he stuck to it he would have been a rich man." "He's lost it all since then, and that place in the north into the bargain." "Wrong again, Grindems, my boy.

If old Vavasor were to die to-morrow, Vavasor Hall would go just as he might choose to leave it.

George may be a ruined man for aught I know--" "There's no doubt about that, I believe," said Grindley.
"Perhaps not, Grindems; but he can't have lost Vavasor Hall because he has never as yet had an interest in it.

He's the natural heir, and will probably get it some day." "All the same," said Calder Jones, "isn't it rather odd he should come in here ?" "We've asked him often enough," said Maxwell; "not because we like him, but because we want him so often to make up a rubber.