"Oh, yes."
"Ninety-nine years is practically for ever. Isn't it?"
"Oh, yes. It must be."
Ford possesses a most inflammatory note-book. Outside it is labelled "Private," inside it is headed "Practically a book." I saw him make an entry in it now, "Eternity: practically ninety-nine years."
Mr. Worters, as if speaking to himself, now observed: "My goodness! My goodness! How land has risen! Perfectly astounding."
I saw that he was in need of a Boswell, so I said: "Has it, indeed?"
"My dear Inskip. Guess what I could have got that wood for ten years ago! But I refused. Guess why."
We could not guess why.
"Because the transaction would not have been straight." A most becoming blush spread over his face as he uttered the noble word. "Not straight. Straight legally. But not morally straight. We were to force the hands of the man who owned it. I refused. The others—decent fellows in their way—told me I was squeamish. I said, 'Yes. Perhaps I am. My name is plain Harcourt Worters—not a well-known name if you go outside the City and my own country, but a name which, where it is known, carries, I flatter myself, some weight. And I will not sign my name to this. That is all. Call me squeamish if you like. But I will not sign. It is just a fad of mine. Let us call it a fad.'" He blushed again. Ford believes that his guardian blushes all over—if you could strip him and make him talk nobly he would look like a boiled lobster. There is a picture of him in this condition in the note-book.
"So the man who owned it then didn't own it now?" said Miss Beaumont, who had followed the narrative with some interest.