--and the question has kept Edith and myself awake the last two
nights--is what's the best thing to do with it? Of course I could
give it to some fund,--or several funds,--but it's a lot of money
and I should like it to be used to the best advantage. Now what do
you say?"

"I say," said I, "that you Croesuses make a half-pay Major of
Artillery's head reel. If I were like you, I should go into a shop
and buy a super-dreadnought, and stick a card on it with a
drawing pin, and send it to the Admiralty with my compliments."

"Duncan," said Lady Fenimore, severely, "don't be flippant."

Heaven knows I was in no flippant mood; but it was worth a foolish
jest to bring a smile to Sir Anthony's face. Also this grave,
conscientious proposition had its humorous side. It was so
British. It reminded me of the story of Swift, who, when Gay and
Pope visited him and refused to sup, totted up the cost of the
meal and insisted on their accepting half-a-crown apiece. It
reminded me too of the rugged old Lancashire commercial blood that
was in him--blood that only shewed itself on the rarest and
greatest of occasions--the blood of his grandfather, the
Manchester cotton-spinner, who founded the fortunes of his house.
Sir Anthony knew less about cotton than he did about ballistics
and had never sat at a desk in a business office for an hour in
his life; but now and again the inherited instinct to put high
impulses on a scrupulously honest commercial basis asserted itself
in the quaintest of fashions.

"There's some sense in what he says, Edith," remarked Sir Anthony.