“That was the old man’s notion; but I don’t suppose it will prove to have been worth anything. It’s usually the case that an ill-conditioned puppy turns out an ill-conditioned dog. The young man is a wild young ass, kicking up his heels at all authority. He was turned out of Oxford in his third year. They couldn’t stand his ways any longer.” “That must have happened several years ago if he is twenty-seven now. I wonder what he has been doing in the meantime.” “Wild--he has been very wild, I hear; knocking about the world--India, Australia, the South Sea Islands, with America to follow. He has been doing no good anywhere. He has no head, you see; his father had no head either--allowed himself to be imposed on right and left. The old man had to pay his debts half-a-dozen times over before he died. The boy seems ready to follow in his father’s footsteps. It’s very sad. Twelve thousand a year at the least.” “But are there not some farms still unlet?” “There are three; but that would only make a difference of a thousand a year. I’m not sure that Dunning did his best in the matter of the big farm--Birchknowle. But the trustees thought no end of Dunning, and you may be sure that when they couldn’t see through him the young man won’t either. Dunning is a muddler if ever there was one. Wouldn’t allow Brigstock the year’s rent that he wanted when he was going in for market gardening. A man could make a fortune off a market garden at Birchknowle, since they brought the branch line there--a fortune. I told Dunning so; and I told Brigstock the same. And so they’ve lost a couple of thousand pounds to the estate when the year’s rent that Brigstock looked for only came to three hundred! Dunning’s a muddler.” “I wonder will young Mr. Wingfield find that out for himself?” Mr. Wadhurst looked up from his plate with a very grim smile. “He’s not the sort to find things out for himself--he has no head, I tell you,” he replied. “Ducks and drakes--that’s the sort of game that will be played by the young ass until every penny’s gone.” “It’s a pretty large poultry bill that will absorb twelve thousand a year, to say nothing of the accumulations,” said Priscilla. “Poultry bill? Pheasants, do you mean?” he said. “Ducks and drakes--that was what you mentioned,” said she. He shook his head in reproof of his daughter’s levity. “When a young spendthrift makes spending the business of his life you may trust him to run through a million in a month. I wonder if he’ll ever find out about the pheasants. Dunning did pretty well out of the pheasants.” “Perhaps he put down all that he made by them--put it down to the credit side of the estate,” she suggested; and again he smiled that grim smile of his--the smile of the shrewd man who is conscious of his own shrewdness. “If he was doing that he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to bind Jenkins over to secrecy,” said the farmer. “But you found out all about it in spite of Jenkins being bound over,” said she.