Mr. John Taylor looked incredulous.

“You don’t mean to tell me you don’t know anything at all about any of them!”

Jacob Taverner put his head on one side and grinned.

“Would you believe me?”

“No, I should not.”

Jacob laughed his queer dry laugh.

“You don’t have to. I know a thing or two here and there, as you might say. Some of them went up in the world, and some of them went down. Some of them died in their beds, and some of them didn’t. Some of them got killed in both wars. Between the little I knew and what was in the fifty letters, I’ve got them more or less sorted out. Now, to start with-my own generation don’t interest me, and they’re mostly gone. So far as my money is concerned you can wash them out. They’ve either made enough for themselves or they’ve got used to doing without. Anyway I’m not interested. It’s the next generation, old Jeremiah’s great-grandchildren, that I’ll be putting my money on, and this is what they boil down to. It’s not the whole of them- you’re to understand that. I’ve picked them over and I’ve sorted them out.”

“Do you mean you’ve been interviewing them?”

“No, I don’t. I didn’t want to be mixed up in it personally-not for the moment. As a matter of fact I’ve taken the liberty of using your name.”

“Really, Jacob!” Mr. Taylor looked decidedly annoyed.

His client gave that odd laugh again.

“You’ll get over it. I haven’t compromised you-only invited the ones I’ve picked to come and meet you here this afternoon.”

John Taylor tapped his knee.

“To meet me-not you?”

“Certainly not to meet me. I am the great Anon, as far as a personal appearance goes. You can give them my name, but I want to have a look at ’em before they have a look at me. You will interview them, and I shall lurk”-he jerked a scraggy elbow-“behind that door. I shall hear without being heard. You will place nine chairs with their backs to me, and I shall be able to look through the crack and see without being seen.”