"He is my second cousin, his mother was an Aston, and he is one of the richest men in England, if not quite the richest. He is thought rich even in America." "And horrid, too, just the same: only perhaps I oughtn't to say so as he is your cousin," added the boy with sudden confusion. Aymer regarded him with an introspective air. "He is a strange man, though many people don't like him. We were great friends once." Christopher opened his eyes very wide. "_You_--and Mr. Masters?" "Yes--when I was a young man like others. We quarrelled--or rather I quarrelled--he came to see me when I was first--ill," he jerked the word out awkwardly, but never took his eyes from Christopher's face. "I was perfectly brutal to him. That's twelve years ago. Most men would never have spoken to me again, but he doesn't bear malice." "He wouldn't mind what anyone said to him," persisted Christopher; "fancy your being friends!" "You like me best then?" Master Christopher caught up a pillow and hurled it at him, and then made a violent effort to smother him under it. "I think you're almost as nasty--when you say things like that, Caesar." "Then retreat from my company and tell Vespasian his baby is waiting to be dressed." Vespasian found his master in one of his rare inconsequent moods, talking nonsense with provoking persistence and exercising his wits in teasing everyone who came in his way. Vespasian smiled indulgently and spent his leisure that day in assisting Christopher to construct a man-of-war out of empty biscuit boxes and cotton reels, for he was dimly possessed of the idea that the boy was in some way connected with his master's unusually good spirits. CHAPTER VIII It was not until Christopher had passed his fourteenth birthday that he came face to face once more with the distant past. He had crossed Westminster Bridge to watch the trams on the other side, and from there, being in an adventurous mood, he had wandered out into vague regions lying beyond, regions of vast warehouses, of narrow, dirty streets and squalid houses, of sudden palaces of commerce towering over the low tide of mean roofs. Suddenly turning a corner, he had come on a block of "model dwellings," and an inrush of memories brought him to a standstill before the giant ugly pile. There, on the topmost floor of the east corner of Block D, had lived Martha Sartin, and Marley Sartin, packer at one of the big warehouses near, also Jessie Sartin and numerous other Sartins, including Sam, who was about Christopher's age; there in the dull asphalt court Sam and Christopher had played, and up that steep stairway had climbed in obedience to husky shouts from over the iron railings of the top landing.