John Taylor leaned forward and said in a perfectly serious voice,

“You know, Jacob, sometimes I really do think that you are mad.”

He got a grimace and a burst of laughter.

“My dear John, I pay you handsomely to prevent anyone else saying so. Besides it isn’t true. I have merely retained my youth, while you have become a fogy. It amuses me to gambol, to disport myself, to play tricks. I have a lot of money. What’s the good of it if I don’t make it amuse me? Well, I’m going to-that’s all. And now, perhaps, you will let me get down to brass tacks and tell you about the people who are coming to see you this afternoon.”

Mr. John Taylor pursed his lips, pulled forward a sheet of note-paper, and took up a nicely pointed pencil. His manner showed resignation, with an underlying suggestion of protest.

Jacob let out one of his cackling laughs.

“All set? Well then, off we go! Taverner’s the name-Geoffrey and Mildred-grandson and granddaughter of Jeremiah’s second son Matthew-brother and sister-somewhere in their forties.”

John Taylor wrote them down.

“Got ’em? Now we come to the next brother, Mark. Granddaughter of his in the female line-Mrs. Duke- Florence -Mrs. Florence Duke.”

John Taylor made no reply. He wrote down, “Mrs. Florence Duke.”

Jacob rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“Jeremiah’s fourth child was a daughter, Mary. This is where we go up in the world. She ran away to go on the stage and married the Earl of Rathlea-old family, poor wits, twopence half-penny in his pocket, and a tumbledown castle in Ireland. The family didn’t know whether they were coming or going. First she disgraced them by going on the stage, and then they disgraced her by being in trade. One way and another there was no love lost, and what you might call a pretty clean cut. Well, Mary’s gone, and the title’s gone-last male heir killed in the war. But there’s a granddaughter, Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington.”