"So your father told me."
"What sort of a fellow shall I find your uncle?"
"He's a gentleman, but not very wise." No more was said between them on that head, but Mountjoy spoke at great length about his own brother and his father's will.
"My father is the most singular man you ever came across."
"I think he is."
"I am not going to say a good word for him. I wouldn't let him think that I had said a good word for him. In order to save the property he has maligned my mother, and has cheated me and the creditors most horribly—most infernally. That's my conviction, though Grey thinks otherwise. I can't forgive him,—and won't; and he knows it. But after that he is going to do the best thing he can for me. And he has begun by making me a decent allowance again as his son. But I'm to have that only as long as I remain here at Tretton. Of course I have been fond of cards."
"I suppose so."
"Not a doubt of it. But I haven't touched a card now for a month nearly. And then he is going to leave me what property he has to leave. And he and my brother have paid off those Jews among them. I'm not a bit obliged to my brother. He's got some game of his own which I don't quite clearly see, and my father is doing this for me simply to spite my brother. He'd cut down every tree upon the place if Grey would allow it. And yet, to give Augustus the property, my father has done this gross injustice."
"I suppose the money-lenders would have had the best of it had he not."
"That's true. They would have had it all. They had measured every yard of it, and had got my name down for the full value. Now they're paid."