Lord Benthorpe was a public man; it was only by his own desire that he had not taken a high place in his party. As it was, in administration he had come near to being, he might yet be, a great Imperial Figure. Mr Burden could well remember how this somewhat younger man had been acclaimed as a worthy successor to his celebrated grandfather. His reputation, especially in youth, had been surrounded by that purely political atmosphere which the patriotism of purely commercial men turns into a halo. All these things Mr Burden insisted upon openly in reply to his son. Perhaps, as old men will, he somewhat exaggerated the importance of a name which recent years had somewhat lessened; but his life had run upon lines sufficiently remote from politics to warrant his humility, and, if he doubted the possibility of obtaining Lord Benthorpe’s advice upon so small a matter as the M’Korio, it was because he estimated at its full value the weight of that advice, should he but have the good fortune to receive it. Cosmo was earnest. He protested that he could not see his father’s objection. He did not know Lord Benthorpe well, but he knew Lord Benthorpe’s son extremely well. He was absolutely certain, he said, that Mr Burden misunderstood the simplicity of such men. Then, apart from that, Lapthorne and Curley had asked advice on neutral matters, and had received it—he assured his father that Lord Benthorpe’s world had for the City as great a regard as ever the City for them; they knew upon what the Empire reposed, and they saw—and for the matter of that he, Cosmo, saw—that, but for some communication between the Benthorpes and the Burdens, the Empire could hardly survive. He would have said more in the same strain, had not Mr Burden, whose pride was dimly suffering from so much protest, risen, rather abruptly, and announced a decision to take his own time in the matter. His son had the tact to say good-night. And Mr Burden also went to his room—but for two hours he wrote and rewrote a letter in the third person, in which Mr Burden presented his compliments to Lord Benthorpe, and expressed in _oratio obliqua_ his apologies, his request for advice, and his trust that it might be obtained. This letter that same night, very late, Mr Burden carefully posted with his own hand in the pillar-box nearest to Avonmore—the pillar-box which stands at the corner where Mafeking Avenue falls into Alexandrovna Road. * * * * * That night, before he slept, an indecision oppressed Mr Burden. He felt he had taken a plunge. He was not sure whether it was for well or for ill; but he knew for certain that he was on the way to unfamiliar places, nor is such expectation congenial to men grown old.