He leant back in his chair and laughed out his great hearty laugh whose boyish ring, coupled with the laugher's easy careless manners, had snared so many fish into the financial net. "They'd like to make a family man of me again--do their dear little best--but I'm not such a fool as they think me. Men with brains and ambitions don't want a wife. You miss less than you think, old chap," he went on with the colossal tactlessness habitual to him when his own interests were not at stake; "a wife plays the devil with one's business. I _know_." He nodded gloomily, the smile lost under a heavy frown. Aymer put down very carefully the broken toy he had been playing with. Peter's elephantine tread was so great that it had almost overstepped its victim. At all events Aymer gave no outward sign that he felt it except in his deepened colour and a faint straightening of the lips. "What on earth do you do with yourself?" went on Peter thoughtfully; "the care of a kid like that doesn't absorb all your brains, I know." "What would you recommend me to do?" asked Aymer quietly. "With your head for figures and your leisure you should take to the Market. Have a machine and tapes fitted up in reach, and, by Jove! in a quiet spot like this, out of the way of other men's panics and nonsense, you could rule the world." "The Market, I think you said." "Same thing. Think of it, Aymer," he went on eagerly and genuinely interested in his proposition, whether spontaneous or not. He began walking up and down the room, working out his idea with that grasp of detail that had made him the millionaire he was. "You could have the instruments and a private wire fixed up along the wall there, and your sofa by them. A clerk over there: it would be a sort of companion. You've plenty of capital to start with, and wouldn't have to lose your head at the first wrong deal. Of course you'd want someone the other end, a figurehead and mouthpiece, and someone to show you the lines, start you off; I'd be pleased to do it. We could make a partnership concern of it, if you liked." There was a quick sidelong glint in his eyes towards Aymer as he came to a stand near the sofa. "What particular results would you expect?" inquired Aymer, knowing the only plan to keep the enthusiast at bay was to humour him. "Why, man, you might be the greatest power in the world--you--the unseen, unknown, mysterious Brain--you would have time--you would escape the crazy influences that ruin half the men 'on 'Change'--and you've got the head for it. Calculation, nerve, everything. It would be just the thing for you. You'd forget all about not being able to walk in a week. I wonder why none of us have thought of it before." "I'm getting used to it after twelve years," said Aymer, with shut teeth; "the objection to your scheme is that I do not happen to want money."