Piers answered that he had only the slightest acquaintance with the young man.
"Not brilliant, I think," said Mr. Jacks musingly. "But amiable, straight. I don't know that he'll do much at the Bar."
Again he lost himself for a little, his knitted brows seeming to indicate an anxious thought.
"Now you shall tell me anything you care to, about business," said the host, when they had seated themselves in the library. "And after that I have something to show you—something you'll like to see, I think."
Otway's curiosity was at a loss when presently he saw his host take from a drawer a little packet of papers.
"I had forgotten all about these," said Mr. Jacks. "They are manuscripts of your father; writings of various kinds which he sent me in the early fifties. Turning out my old papers, I came across them the other day, and thought I would give them to you."
He rustled the faded sheets, glancing over them with a sad smile.
"There's an amusing thing—called 'Historical Fragment.' I remember, oh I remember very well, how it pleased me when I first read it."
He read it aloud now, with many a chuckle, many a pause of sly emphasis.
"'The Story of the last war between the Asiatic kingdoms of Duroba and Kalaya, though it has reached us in a narrative far too concise, is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of ancient civilisation.