He said mournfully: “I could not have advised his lordship to invest his money as he sometimes did. But his nature was sanguine — and I must acknowledge that on several occasions he was fortunate in ventures which I, as a man of affairs, could not have recommended to him.” He refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff taken from the battered silver box which he had been tapping with the tip of one desiccated finger, and added: “I was well-acquainted with your honoured parent, my lord, and have for long been persuaded that it was his hope to have restored to its former prosperity the inheritance to which he succeeded, and which, he knew, must in the course of nature presently fall into your hands. The speculative, and, alas, unlucky enterprise upon which he entered shortly before his untimely demise — ” He broke off, transferring his gaze from Adam’s face to the line of swaying tree-tops beyond the gardens. To them he apparently addressed the rest of his speech, saying: “It should never be forgotten that his late lordship’s nature was, as I have remarked, sanguine. Dear me, yes! If I had a hundred pounds for every occasion on which his lordship suffered reverses on ‘Change without the least diminution of his optimism I should be a wealthy man, I assure you, sir!”

No answer was vouchsafed to this. Adam, instead of seeking further reassurance, said in an even tone: “In plain words, Wimmering, how do my affairs stand?”

Plain words, in situations of the utmost delicacy, were obnoxious to. Wimmering, but, impelled by some quality in that quiet voice, he replied with unaccustomed bluntness: “Badly, my lord.”

Adam nodded. “How badly?”

Mr Wimmering set his fingertips exactly together, and replied evasively: “It is in the highest degree unfortunate that your lordship’s grandfather should have deceased before the coming of age of his late lordship.