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“I don’t want to be disagreeable, but I didn’t come here to talk cars. Tell me about yourself. You’ve grown considerably in most ways. Tell me how you did it.”

“Well—eight years! I needed some growth. And my life’s been healthy enough———”

“So it seems. You were such a little shrimp. . . . You look as hard as nails now.”

“I am, pretty near—feel that! Well?”

“That’s what you’re proud of, is it?”

Tony smiled apologetically.

“I used to mind so infernally when I wasn't strong, he said. “Same about money. When I hadn’t any I wanted it so badly, and now whenever I get any I jam it into the savings-bank, for to grow. It isn’t worth investing yet. . . . Not that I have a saving nature, but—well, for one thing I’ve been scared, and for another I’d sooner have a lot to spend in one fling than a little to fritter. I haven’t touched that capital for nearly two years. Oh, you’d laugh if you knew how little it is! But—it’s fun, and it’s a symbol too. It means Power, and all sorts of things.”

“H’m! It doesn’t do to think too much about it, though.”

“You’ve got to think a good deal about it if you want to make some with nothing to start from, and I always feel as if I’d like to make my pile, just to cheat my father. He’d be done, you know—awfully annoyed! By the way, have you seen anything of him since—that time?”

“I heard of him the other day,” said George soberly.

“Is he dead?” The casual curiosity in Tony’s tone was rather startling in its own way.

“No, but he’s not doing very brilliantly, I fancy. Danvers said he looked ill, and very much aged.”

“About time. He’s not old, though—really. But—You know, I wanted to kill him for ever so long. That’s