“At the same time, I have become more aware than usual of the worries and annoyances connected with the management of my estates.  We live, sir, in a world of robbers”—­Melrose suddenly rounded on his companion, his withered face aflame—­“a world of robbers, and of rapine!  Not a single Tom, Dick, and Harry in these parts that doesn’t think himself my equal and more.  Not a single tenant on my estate that doesn’t try at every point to take advantage of his landlord!  Not a single tramp or poacher that doesn’t covet my goods—­that wouldn’t murder me if he could, and sleep like a baby afterward.  I tell you, sir, we shall see a jacquerie in England, before we are through with these ideas that are now about us like the plague; that every child imbibes from our abominable press!—­that our fools of clergy—­our bishops even—­are not ashamed to preach.  There is precious little sense of property, and not a single rag of loyalty or respect left in this country!  But when you think of the creatures that rule us—­and the fanatics who preach to us—­and the fools who bring up our children, what else can you expect!  The whole state is rotten!  The men in our great towns are ripe for any revolutionary villainy.  We shall come to blood, Faversham!”—­he struck his hand violently on the arm of his chair—­“and then a dictator—­the inevitable round.  Well, I have done my part.  I have fought the battle of property in this country—­the battle of every squire in Cumbria, if the dolts did but know their own interests.  Instead they have done nothing but thwart and bully me for twenty years.  And young Tatham with his County Council nonsense, and his popularity hunting, is one of the very worst of them!  Well, now I’ve done!—­personally.  I daresay they’ll crow—­they’ll say I’m beat.  Anyway, I’ve done.  There’ll have to be fighting, but some one else must see to it.  I intend to put my affairs into fresh hands.  It is my purpose to appoint a new agent—­and to give him complete control of my property!”

Melrose stopped abruptly.  His hard eyes in their deep, round orbits were fixed on Faversham.  The young man was mainly conscious of a half-hysterical inclination to laugh, which he strangled as he best could.  Was he to be offered the post?

“And, moreover,” Melrose resumed, “I want a secretary—­I want a companion—­I want some one who will help me to arrange the immense, the priceless collections there are stacked in this house—­unknown to anybody—­hardly known, in the lapse of years, even to myself.  I desire to unravel my own web, so to speak—­to spin off my own silk—­to examine and analyze what I have accumulated.  There are rooms here—­containing masterpieces—­unique treasures—­that have never been opened for years—­whose contents I have myself forgotten.  That’s why people call me a madman.  Why?  What did I want with a big establishment eating up my income?—­with a lot of prying idiots from outside—­museum bores, bothering me for loans—­common tourists, offering impertinent tips to my housekeeper, or picking and stealing, perhaps, when her back was turned!  I bought the things, and shut them up.  They were safe, anyway.  But now that process has gone on for a quarter of a century.  You come along.  A chance—­a freak—­a caprice, if you like, makes me arrange these rooms for you.  That gives me new ideas—­”