He remembered how, when they came up from school together from the West, on the box seat of the old Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got into the boot and gone to sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny fellow⁠—Roger⁠—an original! He didn’t know! Younger than himself, and in his coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val going to the university; he never came to see him now. He would cost a pretty penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before James’ eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged terribly the risk which the spending of that money might bring on them;

he grudged the diminution of security