“I wish,” Lady Edith remarked almost wistfully, “that I could get on better with him myself conversationally. But I don’t know what to talk about, and it makes me nervous.” Their father, on the contrary, found in him unique resources, and this afternoon it occurred to him that he had never so far heard him express himself freely on the subject of Palliser. If led to do so, he would probably reveal that he had views of Captain Palliser of which he might not have been suspected, and the manner in which they would unfold themselves would more than probably be illuminating. The duke was, in fact, serenely sure that he required neither warning nor advice, and he had no intention of offering either. He wanted to hear the views. “Do you know,” he said as he stirred his tea, “I’ve been thinking about Palliser, and it has occurred to me more than once that I should like to hear just how he strikes you?” “What I got on to first was how I struck him,” answered Tembarom, with a reasonable air. “That was dead easy.” There was no hint of any vaunt of superior shrewdness. His was merely the level-toned manner of an observer of facts in detail. “He has given you an opportunity of seeing a good deal of him,” the duke added. “What do you gather from him--unless he has made up his mind that you shall not gather anything at all?” “A fellow like that couldn’t fix it that way, however much he wanted to,” Tembarom answered again reasonably. “Just his trying to do it would give him away.” “You mean you have gathered things?” “Oh, I’ve gathered enough, though I didn’t go after it. It hung on the bushes. Anyhow, it seemed to me that way. I guess you run up against that kind everywhere. There’s stacks of them in New York--different shapes and sizes.” “If you met a man of his particular shape and size in New York, how would you describe him?” the duke asked. “I should never have met him when I was there. He wouldn’t have come my way. He’d have been on Wall Street, doing high-class bucket-shop business, or he’d have had a swell office selling copper-mines--any old kind of mine that’s going to make ten million a minute, the sort of deal he’s in now. But I don’t believe you asked me because you thought I wasn’t on to him.” “Frankly speaking, no,” answered the duke. “Does he talk to you about the mammoth mines and the rubber forests?”