Jimmy Marrable threw his cigar-end out of the window, and sat up. "Listen, Hughie," he said, "and I'll tell you what you _really_ are. You are the son of a mother who climbed out of her bedroom window (and let herself down a rain-pipe that I wouldn't have trusted a monkey on) in order to elope with the man she loved. Your father was the commander of as tough a native regiment as I have ever known. Your grandfather was an explorer. I've been a bit of a rolling-stone myself. About one relation of yours in three dies in his bed. You come of a stock which prefers to go and see things for itself rather than read about them in the newspaper, and which has acquired a considerable knowledge of the art of handling men in the process. Those are rather rare assets. If you take a woman in tow at the tender age of twenty-one, there will be a disaster. Either you will sit at home and eat your heart out, or you will go abroad and leave her to eat out hers. Am I talking sense?" Hughie sighed like a furnace. "Yes, confound you!" he said. "Will you promise not to rush into matrimony, then?" "Perhaps she'll wait for me," mused Hughie. "How old is she?" "Twenty-one, like me." "H'm," remarked Jimmy Marrable drily. "That means that she is for all practical purposes ten years your senior. However, perhaps she will. Pigs might fly. But will you promise me to think the matter over very carefully before deciding not to go abroad?" "Yes," said Hughie. "That being the case," continued his uncle briskly, "I want to tell you one or two things. If you do go, I may never see you again." "I say," said Hughie in alarm, "there's nothing wrong with your health, is there, old man?" "Bless you, no! But once a Marrable takes to the wilds Methuselah himself couldn't reckon on living long enough to see him again. So I am going to talk to you while I've got you. I am taking this opportunity of being near town to see my solicitor and make my will. I am fit enough, but I am fifty this year; and at that age a man ought to make some disposition of his property. I may as well tell you that I have left you nothing. Annoyed?" "Not in the least." "And I have left nothing to Master Lance." Hughie looked a little surprised at this.