Doubtless the old man had seen it coming; he heard the galling proposal with a face which showed nothing stronger than profound surprise.  “Restitution!  My dear boy, I owe no restitution to any one.”

“You hardly take the position that you have acquired a title to the Weyland trustee funds?”

“Ah, there it is!” purred Surface, making a melancholy gesture.  “You see why I did not wish to open up this complicated subject.  Your ignorance, if you will pardon me, of modern business procedure, makes it very difficult for you to grasp the matter in its proper bearings.  Without going into too much detail, let me try to explain it to you.  This settlement of my affairs that you speak of was forcibly done by the courts, in the interest of others, and to my great injury.  The rascals set out to cut my throat—­was it required of me to whet the knife for them?  They set out to strip me of the last penny I had, and they had every advantage, despotic powers, with complete access to all my private papers.  If the robbers overlooked something that I had, a bagatelle I needed for the days of my adversity, was it my business to pluck them by the sleeve and turn traitor to myself?  Why, the law itself gave me what they passed over.  I was declared a bankrupt.  Don’t you know what that means?  It means that the courts assumed responsibility for my affairs, paid off my creditors, and, as a small compensation for having robbed me, wiped the slate clean and declared me free of all claims.  And this was twenty-five years ago.  My dear boy!  Read the Bankruptcy Act.  Ask a lawyer, any lawyer—­”

“Let us not speak of lawyers—­now,” interrupted Queed, stirring in his chair.  “Let their opinion wait as a last alternative, which, I earnestly hope, need never be used at all.  I am not bringing up this point to you now as a legal question, but as a moral one.”

“Ah!  You do not find that the morals provided by the law are good enough for you, then?”

“If your reading of the law is correct—­of which I am not so certain as you are, I fear—­it appears that they are not.  But—­”

“It is my misfortune,” interrupted the old man, his hand tightening on the table-edge, “that your sympathies are not with me in the matter.  Mistaken sentiment, youthful Quixotism, lead you to take an absurdly distorted view of what—­”

“No, I’m afraid not.  You see, when stripped of all unnecessary language, the repulsive fact is just this:  we are living here on money that was unlawfully abstracted from the Weyland estate.  No matter what the law may say, we know that this money morally belongs to its original owners.  Now I ask you—­”

“Let me put it another way.  I can show you exactly where your misapprehension is—­”

Queed stopped him short by a gesture.  “My mind is so clear on this point that discussion only wastes our time.”

The young man’s burst of exultation was all but stillborn; already despair plucked chilly at his heart-strings.  For the first time the depth of his feeling broke through into his voice:  “Say, if you like that I am unreasonable, ignorant, unfair.  Put it all down to besotted prejudice....  Can’t you restore this money because I ask it?  Won’t you do it as a favor to me?”