“Perhaps she’s right. Aunt Lavinia’s always been right ever since I can remember.” “I should say so. She doesn’t look it, but she’s always worn the trousers, and small blame to her. But she was wrong once.” “When was that?” He narrowed his eyes and watched the smoke curl up into the velvet air. When it had drifted a few yards away, one could imagine that it was a galleon cloud sailing slowly through infinity. I got to thinking how much more picturesque the world becomes when we lose our standards of perspective. Uncle Obad had won his happiness by making small things important to himself. He did not answer my question. I was too lazy to trouble him again. The rich spicy fragrance of woodlands lulled my senses. I watched through a gap in the trees how the sun’s rays shortened across the downs. All the out-door world was bathed in tepid light. The fierceness had gone out of the day. The Spuffler always made me philosophize; he was a failure, but he had found a secret. He had known how to discover nooks and crannies in the persistent present where he could be content. I had lost that fine faculty for carelessness since I had grown older. He knocked out his pipe and commenced to refill it. “But she wasn’t always right,” he chuckled. “I may be only an old knacker, but once I was righter than her.--What d’you think of all this?” He jerked his thumb across his shoulder. “It’s the last word... just what we always dreamt.” “That’s why I called it Dream Haven. Not so bad for a man of my years after keeping a Christian Boarding House!” “Make it pay?” “Not yet. Don’t need to, by Golly.” “Don’t need to! How’s that?” “Business knowledge. Sound judgment. Backing my opinion when the odds were against me. I doubled up my fists and stood square against the world.” “A kind of brave Horatius?” “Who’s he?” “Kept the bridge or something. Was a friend of Macaulay.” “Never heard of him. Did he keep poultry?” “May have done; he was the kind of man who’d keep anything he laid his hands on. But how the dickens d’you hang on to this place if it isn’t paying?” “Got money. Got money to burn. Got enough to last me to my journey’s end without earning a penny.” He was a small boy boasting. What a lot of fun he’d have extracted from being Squire of Woadley. I wished I might learn how to spuffle; it so multiplied one’s opportunities for pleasure. But I couldn’t get as excited as he expected; I had heard him talk this way before on a certain day at Richmond. “Did you make it out of the boarding-house?” I inquired incredulously. He laughed deep down in his throat. “Not exactly. I received an envelope one morning; inside was a slip of paper on which was written ‘_Compensation for a damaged character_’ There was no address.” “But there must have been more than that.” “You bet. There was a banker’s draft. How much for? Guess.” “Can’t guess.” “Five thousand pounds.” “Whoof! One of your charitable bigwigs sent it?”