"You can't believe it all, Ned," went on Sir Geoffrey, speaking now with less passion but more eagerness, as if his memories brimmed over, "until you've been through with it. I meant it all to be above board, but it wasn't. The jobbery was awful. Every man just clamouring for money. A gentleman oughtn't to touch a thing like that--it's pitch, Ned. He has to keep in with builders and masons and plumbers--Oh, my God!--the plumbers!--all thinking of nothing but 'pay, pay, pay.' Ah! Kipling knew the game when he wrote that refrain for England's heroism, her patriotism. It will go down to the ages, Ned, as one man's insight into what we English are becoming." He was walking up and down the room now, restlessly. "They were all bad, but Jenkin was the worst--and he ought to have known. It was his nephew who put in the electric plant. You'll say I ought to have struck, Ned, and so I ought, but your money was gone, Ned, and their's too, poor devils!--a lot of the farmers and people only put in a few pounds because it was my idea, you see. It had to go on. And what did I know about sea-sand and second-class putty. It isn't gentleman's work and that's a fact. But the jolly old Atlantic knew sharp enough and sent salt through the plaster and sea-spray through the concrete.... Then, when we were in a bad way, and Jenkin--pettifogging tradesman!--all for saving every penny, I met Hirsch. Between ourselves, Ned, he began by fancying Helen, and I--I--well! He isn't a cad, you know, and half those men one meets are; yet their wives don't--don't seem to mind." He paused and looked at Ned Blackborough appealingly, but he was inexorable. "Hardly the man I should have thought you'd have chosen, sir, as the father of your grandchildren." Sir Geoffrey took it full in the face without flinching. "No," he said simply, "I suppose not. But I've gone down, Ned, gone down terribly. I sometimes wonder if she--if your aunt, I mean, would know me again if--if I saw her." He took a turn or two without speaking, then gave an afterthought excuse which made Ned smile, and yet feel inclined to curse. "But there mightn't be any children, you know. What good would they be--the old place has gone from the Pentreaths--gone utterly. Let me see--where was I? Oh yes! Hirsch came and saw it, and said it was the finest site in Britain. And so it is. There's not a better for health or beauty than Cam's point. So he put us on our feet again, and spent an awful lot on what he called 'colour wash.' At least it seems an awful lot to me, and Jenkin was wild. But we had to run it, or the new company wouldn't have caught on--we have to make it fizz, you see--but I wish to God I'd never begun,--I wish to God I'd never begun----" He was still walking up and down muttering to himself. "And meanwhile," asked Ned, in spite of his supreme pity, "what is to be done? The wires may fuse any moment--so Charteris thinks----"