"I might put the same question to you, Bernard?"
"I'll tell you my story later. Out with yours, old boy."
"Just the same authoritative manner," said Conniston, shrugging. "I never did have a chap order me about as you do. If you weren't such a good chap you'd have been a bully with that domineering way you have. I wonder how you like knuckling under to orders?"
"He who cannot serve is not fit to command," quoted Gore, sententiously. "Go on with the story."
"It's not much of a story. I came in for the title three years ago, when I was rising twenty. But I inherited nothing else. My respected grandfather made away with nearly all the family estates, and my poor father parted with the rest. Upon my word," said the young lord, laughing, "with two such rascals as progenitors, it's wonderful I should be as good as I am. They drank and gambled and—"
"Don't, Conniston. After all your father is your father."
"Was my father, you mean. He's dead and buried in the family vault. I own that much property—all I have."
"Where is it?"
"At Cove Castle in the Essex Marshes!"
"I remember. You told me about it at school. Cove Castle is ten miles from Hurseton."