'If the acuteness of the police can be stimulated by the hope of reward, that motive shall not be wanting; returned Churchill. 'I shall offer a couple of hundred pounds for the conviction of the murderer.' 'Very proper,' murmured Mr. Pergament, approvingly. 'No, you had seen very little of poor James, I apprehend,' he went on, in a conversational tone. 'I doubt if he and I met half a dozen times. I saw him once at Eton, soon after my father's death, when I was spending a day or two at a shooting-box near Bracknell, and walked over to have a look at the college. He was a little curly-headed chap, playing cricket, and I remember tipping him, ill as I could afford the half-sovereign. One can't see a schoolboy without tipping him. I daresay the young rascal ran off and spent my hard-earned shillings on strawberry ices and pound-cake as soon as my back was turned. I saw him a few years afterwards in his mother's house, somewhere near Baker Street. She asked me to a dinner party, and as she made rather a point of it, I went. A slowish business—as women's dinners generally are—all the delicacies that were just going out of season, and some elderly ladies to adorn the board. I asked James to breakfast at my club—put him up for the Garrick—and I think that's about the last time I ever saw him.' 'Poor lad,' sighed the family solicitor. 'Such a promising young fellow. But I doubt if he would have kept the property together. There was very little of his grandfather, old Squire Penwyn, about him. A wonderful man that, vigorous in body and mind to the last year of his life. I spent a week at Penwyn about seventeen years ago, just before your poor uncle was killed by those abominable red-skins in Canada. I can see the Squire before me now, a hale old country gentleman, always dressed in a Lincoln-green coat, with basket buttons, Bedford cords, and vinegar tops—hunted three times a week every season, after he was seventy years of age—the Assheton Smith stamp of man. The rising generation will never ripen into that kind of thing, Mr. Penwyn. The stuff isn't in 'em.' 'I never saw much of my grandfather,' said Churchill, in his grave quiet voice, which expressed so little emotion, save when deepest passion warmed his spirit to eloquence. 'My father's marriage offended him, as I dare say you heard at the time.' Mr. Pergament nodded assent. 'Prejudice, prejudice,' he murmured, blandly. 'Elderly gentlemen who live on their estates are prone to that sort of thing.'