Creagh nodded.
"He carried him off, then and there, put him through his paces with some elementary work to see what he was capable of, then gave him the lowest place in the office, kept him at the mill, ground from him his last grain of work, like the hardest taskmaster, led him on by successive rises to his own private secretaryship, and then shipped him to Taorna and gave him a magnificent chance of making name and fortune."
Hare rose, grumbling.
"Don't pin your faith on such a broken reed. You'll make a mistake. The man's had things too easily. What age is he? Thirty? I thought so. Why, a man worth calling a man ought to contest every inch of the way until he's forty; the law of the survival of the fittest obtains in politics as elsewhere. There ought to be an injunction to prevent people coming into money easily—money, in any case, mars ten men for the one it makes. While Calvert's alive to keep him in order, your young man may possibly play the game for a bit, and even achieve a certain success. Mark my words, after Calvert's death his protégé will marry some designing woman, who will use him as the means to a title, and gratify her ambition at the cost of his career."
"Or one who makes him happy," said Beadon grimly. "That's quite as bad, although more rare."
Creagh shrugged his shoulders.
"What a cynical lot you are! So far as Farquharson's methods go, I have had to take them on trust. I only know the results of his work; I should advise you to read them for yourselves in a blue-book which will be out very shortly. But Calvert we all know is as shrewd as any Scotsman, and just as little liable to err. Ask him what he thinks of the man; make him tell you what means Farquharson employed to annex that little island whose pearl fisheries quadrupled Calvert's income." His eyes twinkled. "It's an Arabian Night's tale in its way."
"Pearl fisheries! that sounds attractive," said Dora Beadon, her eyes gleaming so far as such pale eyes could gleam.
"May we really ask Mr. Calvert about it? You expect him to-day, don't you?" asked Evelyn quietly.
Creagh looked at his watch.