Author Description

If John Grantham Browne had a fault-which, mind you, I am not prepared to admit-it lay in the fact that he was the possessor of a cynical wit which he was apt at times to use upon his friends with somewhat peculiar effect. Circumstances alter cases, and many people would have argued that he was perfectly entitled to say what he pleased. When a man is worth a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year-which, worked out, means ten thousand pounds a month, three hundred and twenty-eight pounds, fifteen shillings and fourpence a day, and four-and-sixpence three-farthings, and a fraction over, per minute-he may surely be excused if he becomes a little sceptical as to other people's motives, and is apt to be distrustful of the world in general. Old Brown, his father, without the "e," as you have doubtless observed, started life as a bare-legged street arab in one of the big manufacturing centres-Manchester or Birmingham, I am not quite certain which. His head, however, must have been screwed on the right way, for he made few mistakes, and everything he touched turned to gold. At thirty his bank balance stood at fifteen thousand pounds; at forty it had turned the corner of a hundred thousand; and when he departed this transitory life, a young man in everything but years, he left his widow, young John's mother-his second wife, I may remark in passing, and the third daughter of the late Lord Rushbrooke-upwards of three and a half million pounds sterling in trust for the boy.