read it all to you—though most of it is rather hard on me.
"'Dear Mr. Preston,' he begins. 'I am giving my whole last evening to this for you, dear chap, for I fear many things must be explained. But to be fair to you, let me assure you that you are far from the first person I have poggled up for profit. Nor must you imagine that I misled you in all matters.
"'Actually, as I told you, dear chap, an ancestor of mine—who got together quite a fortune in rather devious ways, I fear—repented before he died and took a tour of all the cathedrals in the Kingdom. And, exactly as I told you, he enjoined this practice upon his descendants and made it perpetual with the property. A bit more perpetual than the property, indeed; for, when the entail got down to me, about all I could see in it was my pious ancestor's promise of sure profit for me in making a tour of the cathedrals.
"'Of course, I'd been living by my talents for ten years or so before this. In my time,
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