Like all men who have suffered reverses, he had to experience the different acceptance he met with in his days of humble fortune from what greeted him in his era of prosperity. If he felt this, none could detect it. His bearing and manner betrayed nothing of such consciousness. A very slight increase of stateliness might possibly have marked him in his poverty, and an air of more reserved dignity, which showed itself in his manner to strangers. In all other respects he was the same. That such a character should have exercised a great influence over a young man like Tom Lendrick--ardent, impetuous, and desirous of adventure--was not strange. “We must make a fortune for Lucy, Tom,” said Sir Brook. “Your father's nature is too fine strung to be a money-maker, and she must be cared for.” This was a desire which he continued to utter day after day; and though Fossbrooke usually smoked on after he had said it without any intimation as to where and when and how this same fortune was to be amassed, Tom Lendrick placed the most implicit faith in the assurance that it would be done “somehow.” One morning as Lendrick was walking with his son in the garden, making, as he called it, his farewell visit to his tulips and moss-roses, he asked Tom if any fixed plan had been decided on as to his future. “We have got several, sir. The difficulty is the choice. Sir Brook was at one time very full of buying a great tract in Donegal, and stocking it with all sorts of wild animals. We began with deer, antelopes, and chamois; and last night we got to wolves, bears, and a tiger. We were to have a most commodious shooting-box, and invite parties to come and sport, who, instead of going to Bohemia, the Rocky Mountains, and to Africa, would find all their savagery near home, and pay us splendidly for the privilege. “There are some difficulties in the plan, it is true; our beasts might not be easy to keep within bounds. The jaguar might make an excursion into the market-town; the bear might eat a butcher. Sir Brook, besides, doubts if _fero_ could be preserved under the game laws. He has sent a case to Brewster for his opinion.” “Don't tell me of such absurdities,” said Lendrick, trying to repress his quiet laugh. “I want you to speak seriously and reasonably.” “I assure you, sir, we have the whole details of this on paper, even to the cost of the beasts, and the pensions to the widows of the keepers that may be devoured. Another plan that we had, and it looked plausible enough too, was to take out a patent for a wonderful medical antidote. As Sir Brook says, there is nothing like a patent medicine to make a man rich; and by good luck he is possessed of the materials for one. He has the secret for curing the bite of the rattlesnake. He got it from a Tuscarora Indian, who, I believe, was a sort of father-in-law to him. Three applications of this to the wound have never been known to fail.” “But we are not infested with rattlesnakes, Tom.”