His father never came to see him when he was at school. "I know why," sneered the enemy. "Why, then?" flared Jim. "He daren't. Give the show away." After that the lad gave his enemy a sound hiding, and peace reigned. The bounders might say he was a bounder, but they had to admit that he could give and take punishment with the best. * * * * * He left Eton absolutely unspoilt. A year before the lad quitted the school his father sent for him. "I didn't want you to go to Eton, Jim," he said. "I'm glad now. Do you want to go on to Oxford?" The boy thought; and when his reply came it was honest as himself. "All my friends are going," he said. "I should like it for that reason. But I don't know that I should get much out of it." "Go for a year," said his father. "See what you make of it. If you're getting any good of it, you can go on. If not, we'll see." The boy did not leave the room. His interviews with his father were rare; and there was a question he had long wished to ask. Now he blurted it out. "Am I to go into the Bank, father?" The old man blinked at his son over his spectacles, and then shoved back his chair. "What d'you want?" he asked. "I should like the Army, or to farm," replied the son. Mr. Silver put down his paper. It was some time before he answered. "The Bank's my life," he said at last. "You're my son. You may choose for yourself." He drummed with his fingers on the table; and Jim left the room. * * * * * When the half-breeds, as Lord Amersham called them, jeered at Silver as the son of an agricultural labourer there was a modicum of truth at the back of the lie. The boy came of a long line of yeoman-farmers in Leicestershire, famous for generations for their stock and their integrity. Jim Silver's grandfather was the last of that line. He was a big man and big farmer, husbanding his wide acres wisely and well, breeding good stock, enjoying his day's hunting, but not making too much of it, touching his hat to his landlord, a familiar and imposing figure at all the Agricultural Shows in the Midlands. His only son George was in his father's opinion a sport. Certainly he was no true Silver: that was obvious from his earliest years. He cared nothing for a horse, was a shamefully bad judge of a beast, had no feeling for the fields, never knew the real poetic thrill at the sight and smell of a yard knee deep in muck, and hated mud and rain. "More of a scholar," said his father regretfully. "All for books and studyin'." Mr. Silver, wise as are those who come into contact with Nature at first hand, did not interfere with his son's queer predilections or attempt to stay his development on the lines of instinctive preference, aiding the boy indeed in every way to make the most of himself on the path he had chosen.