“I don’t pretend to be a man of genius like your father. I went into business at fifteen years of age. I’ve pegged away a good forty years since then, and I guess I’ve managed to get pretty much what I want out of the world. Talent don’t pay, sir. No, sir; it’s common sense that pays.” Aunt Adelaide, who is Uncle George’s second wife, is handsome and fashionable. She was a widow with one daughter when Uncle George married her. So you see that Meta is really no relation to either Geof or ourselves. She is six months older than I, and she and Geof do not get along so very well. She thinks him stupid because he does not like the things she likes, and he thinks her silly and affected. I am afraid she sometimes is. Georgie is both Meta and Geof’s half-brother. He is a little younger than our Robin. He has very rosy cheeks, and beautiful clothes, and expensive toys. Once when he was sick for two weeks with German measles a trained nurse was engaged, and he had chicken broth and oranges every day. Sometimes I hate Georgie!—which is wicked. Uncle George is devoted to his family, after his own fashion, and does not spare any expense where they are concerned; though he, himself, dresses plainly and never gives anything in charity. He says he does not believe in it, that no one ever gave anything to him. One day when he was standing in the middle of our parlour with his cheeks puffed out as usual, Robin, who had been sitting in the window turning the pages of an animal picture-book, looked up. “Did you ever wish you were a camel, Uncle George?” he asked. “No; I can’t say I ever did,” answered Uncle George, condescendingly. “Why should I, now?” “It would be so much easier for you to get into heaven,” chirped Robin. And, after a minute, when Uncle George had thought it over and began to understand, he laughed and really felt rather flattered. Dear father was so different! I said I would tell about his one success, and how we did not profit by it as we should. It was a great pity, because most of the problems father worked on had no market value at all:—he was too brilliant to find it easy to consider commercial interests. But this was different,—something quite sellable and practical,—a mechanical attachment for dump-carts! How ever father came to think of it, he admitted that he did not know. He quite despised it, and was really rather ashamed even to explain the way it worked. But he made up his mind that for once a little money would be nice; so he took the model to Uncle George and asked for a loan. But Uncle George’s own affairs were rather involved just at that time, and besides he said he did not care for investments of such a nature. He never had much faith in father.