’You never come down without suggesting something that goes counter to my scheme.  I have here three letters from you, each of which recommends an article I should never dream of putting in.  I had your father here yesterday afternoon, who made further valuable suggestions.

’Please make up your mind, therefore, whether you want me to decorate for you, or to retire which on the whole I should prefer to do.

’But understand that, if I decorate, I decorate alone, without interference of any sort.

If I do the thing, I will do it thoroughly, but I must have a free hand.

’Yours truly,
‘Philip Bosinney.’

The exact and immediate cause of this letter cannot, of course, be told, though it is not improbable that Bosinney may have been moved by some sudden revolt against his position towards Soames—­that eternal position of Art towards Property—­which is so admirably summed up, on the back of the most indispensable of modern appliances, in a sentence comparable to the very finest in Tacitus: 

THOS.  T. Sorrow, Inventor.  Bert M. PADLAND, Proprietor.

“What are you going to say to him?” James asked.

Soames did not even turn his head.  “I haven’t made up my mind,” he said, and went on with his defence.

A client of his, having put some buildings on a piece of ground that did not belong to him, had been suddenly and most irritatingly warned to take them off again.  After carefully going into the facts, however, Soames had seen his way to advise that his client had what was known as a title by possession, and that, though undoubtedly the ground did not belong to him, he was entitled to keep it, and had better do so; and he was now following up this advice by taking steps to—­as the sailors say—­’make it so.’

He had a distinct reputation for sound advice; people saying of him:  “Go to young Forsyte—­a long-headed fellow!” and he prized this reputation highly.

His natural taciturnity was in his favour; nothing could be more calculated to give people, especially people with property (Soames had no other clients), the impression that he was a safe man.  And he was safe.  Tradition, habit, education, inherited aptitude, native caution, all joined to form a solid professional honesty, superior to temptation—­from the very fact that it was built on an innate avoidance of risk.  How could he fall, when his soul abhorred circumstances which render a fall possible—­a man cannot fall off the floor!

And those countless Forsytes, who, in the course of innumerable transactions concerned with property of all sorts (from wives to water rights), had occasion for the services of a safe man, found it both reposeful and profitable to confide in Soames.  That slight superciliousness of his, combined with an air of mousing amongst precedents, was in his favour too—­a man would not be supercilious unless he knew!