"Lots!" he cried. "I don't seem to have seen anything of you yet, and I'm sure you haven't seen much of the place. Isn't it a place and a half? Look at the terrace in the moonlight—and the spires—and the windows—hundreds of 'em—and the lawn and the tank! Then there's the inside; you've seen the hall; but I must show you the picture-gallery and the State Apartments. Such pictures! They say it's one of the finest private collections in the world; there's hardly one of them that isn't by some old master or another. I've heard the pictures alone are worth half a million of money!"
"They are," said Dalrymple.
"You've heard so too?"
"Of course; my good fellow, your possessions are celebrated all the world over; that's what you don't appear to have realised yet."
"I can't," said Jack. "It puts me in a sick funk when I try! So it would you if you were suddenly to come in for a windfall like mine—that is, if you were a chap like me. But you aren't; you'd be the very man for the billet."
And Jack stepped back to admire his hero, who chuckled softly as he smoked, standing at his full height, with both hands in his pockets, and the moon like limelight on his shirt.
"It's not a billet I should care about," said the squatter; "but it's great fun to find you filling it so admirably——"
"I don't; I wish I did," said Jack, throwing away the cigar which he had lighted to keep his guest company.
"You do, though. And if it isn't a rude question——" Dalrymple hesitated, staring hard—
"I daresay you're very happy in your new life?"