"You saw him?" asked Leighton. Lewis nodded. "Well, that chap got through twenty thousand a year,--pounds, not dollars,--capital and income, in just five years. After that he starved. I know a man that lent him half a crown. The borrower said he'd live on it for a week. Then he found out that, despite being a gentleman, there was one little thing he could do well. He could make a roast duck fall apart as though by magic, and he could handle a full-sized carving-knife with the ease and the grace of a duchess handling a fan. Wow he's getting eight hundred a year--pounds again--and all he can eat." From the eating-house Leighton took Lewis to his club. He sought out a small room that is called the smoking-room to this day, relic of an age when smokers were still a race apart. In the corner sat an old man reading. He was neatly dressed in black. Beside him was a decanter of port. Leighton led the way back to the lounge-room. "Well, did you see him?" "The old man?" said Lewis. "Yes, I saw him." "That's Old Ivory," said Leighton. "He's an honorable. He was cursed by the premature birth--to him--of several brothers. In other words, he's that saddest of British institutions, a younger son. His brothers, the other younger sons, are still eating out of the hand of their eldest brother, Lord Bellim. But not Old Ivory. He bought himself an annuity ten years ago. How did he do it? Well, he had enough intelligence to realize that he hadn't much. He decided he could learn to shoot well at fifty yards. He did. Then he went after elephants, and got 'em, in a day when they shipped ivory not by the tusk, but by the ton, and sold it at fifteen shillings a pound." As they walked back to the flat, Leighton said: "Now, take your time and think. Is there anything you know how to do well?" "Nothing," stammered Lewis--"nothing except goats." "Ah, yes, goats," said Leighton, but his thoughts were not on goats. Back in his den, he took from a drawer in the great oak desk the kid that Lewis had molded in clay and its broken legs, for another had gone. He looked at the fragments thoughtfully. "To my mind," he said, "there is little doubt but that you could become efficient at terra-cotta designing; you might even become a sculptor." "A sculptor!" repeated Lewis, as though he voiced a dream. Leighton paid no attention to the interruption. "I hesitate, however, to give you a start toward art because you carry an air of success with you. One predicts success for you too--too confidently. And success in art is a formidable source of danger." "Success a source of danger, Dad?" "In art," corrected Leighton.