“Yes.  It was a small firm, was Tyson’s.  But they’re big people, I fancy, by now.  Old Mr. Tyson left ’em and set up by himself in the wholesale business in Birmingham.  He made a mint o’ money.  I understand he bought one of the best properties in your county; is that so, sir?”

If Mr. Vance had not made coats for Sir Peter for thirty years, he had made them for twenty-five or thereabouts, and he was privileged to gossip.

“Yes, yes, Thorneytoft.  Very good property.  And a very good sort too, old Mr. Tyson.”

“A little peculiar, I’m told.”

“Well—­perhaps.  I had not much acquaintance with the old man myself, but he was very generally respected.  I know his nephew, Mr. Nevill Tyson—­slightly.”

Sir Peter would have died rather than ask a direct question, but he was wildly curious as to Mr. Nevill Tyson’s antecedents.

An illuminating smile spread over Mr. Vance’s face.

“I remember him when he was a youngster.  His father chucked the business, and set up as a Baptist minister—­a Particular Baptist.”

“Indeed.”

“An uncommonly clever fellow, Nevill Tyson; sharp as needles.  But they couldn’t bring him up to the business, nor the ministry.”

“Hardly good enough for him, I should imagine.”

“Well—­no.  It wasn’t a house with any standing in his time.  He’d got ideas in his head, too.  Nothing but a ’Varsity education suited his book.”

“Ah, that always tells.”

“His father was very much against it.  He knew the young rascal.  And just when he was at the top of the tree, as you may say, sure enough he made off—­goodness knows where.”

“Lived abroad a great deal, I believe.”  Sir Peter was anxious to throw a vaguely charitable light on his neighbor’s escapades.

“Got into some scrape about a woman, I fancy.  Anyhow he left a pile of debts behind him, and the old man ruined himself paying them.”

Bristling with curiosity, Sir Peter endeavored to look detached.  But at this point Mr. Vance, remembering, perhaps, that Mr. Nevill Tyson was a great man in his customer’s county, and chilled a little by Sir Peter’s manner, checked the flow of his reminiscences.  “He was a wild young scamp—­another two inches round the waist, sir—­but I daresay he’s settled down steady enough by this time.”

“No doubt he has,” said Sir Peter, a little loftily.  He was disgusted with Vance.

But though Vance’s conduct was disgusting, after all he had told him what he was dying to know.  The antecedents of old Tyson of Thorneytoft had been wrapped in a dull mystery which nobody had ever taken the trouble to penetrate.  He had been in business—­that much was known; and as he was highly respectable, it was concluded that his business had been highly respectable too.  And then he had retired for ten years before he came to Thorneytoft.  Those ten years might be considered a season of purification