Harry's mood of gay contentment, clouded once or twice before, seemed now eclipsed. He sat tapping his boot impatiently with his stick. His father's telegram--or Andy's interpretation of it--clearly did not please him. In the abstract, of course, he had known that he would have a successor in the place which he had given up, or from which he had fallen. It had never entered his head that anybody would suggest Andy Hayes, his old-time worshipper and humble follower. He was not an ungenerous man, but this idea demanded a radical readjustment of his estimate of the relative positions of Andy and himself. If Andy were to succeed to what he had lost, it brought what he had lost very sharply before his eyes. "Well, if that is the meaning of it, it certainly seems rather--rather a rum start, eh, Andy? New sort of game for you!" He tried to make his voice pleasant. "It is--it would be--awfully kind of them to think of it," said Andy, now smiling in candid gratification. "And Wigram, as well as your father, was highly complimentary about some of my speeches. But it would be quite out of the question. I've neither the time nor the money." "It's a deuced expensive game," Harry remarked. "And, of course, no end of work, especially in the next few months. And when you're in, it's not much good in these days, unless you can give all your time to it." "I know," said Andy, nodding grave appreciation of all these difficulties. "It seems to me quite out of the question. Still, if that is what they mean, I can hardly refuse to discuss it. You see, it's a considerable compliment, anyhow." He was thinking the idea over in his steady way, and had not paid heed to Harry's altered mood. The objections Harry put forward were so in tune with his own mind that it did not strike him as at all odd that his friend should urge them even zealously. "In any event," he added, "I should have to be guided entirely by what Gilly Foot thought." "What Gilly thought?" "I mean whether he thought it would be compatible with the claims of the business." "What, you'd really think of it?" There was such unmistakable vexation, even scorn, in his voice now that Andy could not altogether miss the significance of the tone. He looked across at Harry with an air of surprise. "There's no harm in thinking a thing over. I always like to do that." "Well, of all the men I thought of as likely to step into my shoes, I never thought of you." "It's the last thing I should ever have thought of either. You've something in your mind, haven't you? I hope you'll say anything you think quite candidly." "Oh well, since you ask me, old fellow, from the party point of view I think there are--er--certain objections. I mean, in a place like Meriton family connections and so on still count for a good deal--on our side, anyhow." Andy nodded, again comprehending and admitting. "Yes, I'm nobody; and my father was nobody, from that point of view." He smiled. "And then there's Jack Rock!"