“I think Roger’d have been pleased,” his uncle went on. “The thing was very well done. Blackley’s? I’ll make a note of them. Buxton’s done me no good. These Boers are upsetting me⁠—that fellow Chamberlain’s driving the country into war. What do you think?”

“Bound to come,” murmured Soames.

Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, clean-shaven cheeks, very rosy after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his lips. This business had revived all his Liberal principles.

“I mistrust that chap; he’s a stormy petrel. House-property will go down if there’s war. You’ll have trouble with Roger’s estate. I often told him he ought to get out of some of his houses. He was an opinionated beggar.”

“There was a pair of you!” thought Soames. But he never argued with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as “a long-headed chap,” and the legal care of their property.