“Go for a year,” said his father.  “See what you make of it.  If you’re getting any good of it, you can go on.  If not, we’ll see.”

The boy did not leave the room.

His interviews with his father were rare; and there was a question he had long wished to ask.

Now he blurted it out.

“Am I to go into the Bank, father?”

The old man blinked at his son over his spectacles, and then shoved back his chair.

“What d’you want?” he asked.

“I should like the Army, or to farm,” replied the son.

Mr. Silver put down his paper.

It was some time before he answered.

“The Bank’s my life,” he said at last.  “You’re my son.  You may choose for yourself.”  He drummed with his fingers on the table; and Jim left the room.

* * * * *

When the half-breeds, as Lord Amersham called them, jeered at Silver as the son of an agricultural labourer there was a modicum of truth at the back of the lie.

The boy came of a long line of yeoman-farmers in Leicestershire, famous for generations for their stock and their integrity.

Jim Silver’s grandfather was the last of that line.  He was a big man and big farmer, husbanding his wide acres wisely and well, breeding good stock, enjoying his day’s hunting, but not making too much of it, touching his hat to his landlord, a familiar and imposing figure at all the Agricultural Shows in the Midlands.

His only son George was in his father’s opinion a sport.  Certainly he was no true Silver:  that was obvious from his earliest years.  He cared nothing for a horse, was a shamefully bad judge of a beast, had no feeling for the fields, never knew the real poetic thrill at the sight and smell of a yard knee deep in muck, and hated mud and rain.

“More of a scholar,” said his father regretfully.  “All for books and studyin’.”

Mr. Silver, wise as are those who come into contact with Nature at first hand, did not interfere with his son’s queer predilections or attempt to stay his development on the lines of instinctive preference, aiding the boy indeed in every way to make the most of himself on the path he had chosen.

Thus he sent him to the Grammar School at Leicester.  The boy went joyfully:  for he was very modern.  The town, the books, the people, the streets, the hum of business, the opening gates of knowledge, pleased and contented his insatiable young spirit.  The father had the reward of his daring.  George did famously and became in time Captain of the School.  The farmer attended prize-giving, and watched his son march up to the table time after time amidst the cheers of his school-fellows.

“George has got the red rosette again, Mr. Silver,” smiled the Headmaster.

“So I see,” replied the farmer.  “But the showring’s one thing, work’s another.”  And when pressed to send his son on to a University he refused.