THE COXON FUND
I
"They've got him for life!" I said to myself that evening on my way back to the station; but later, alone in the compartment (from Wimbledon to Waterloo, before the glory of the District Railway), I amended this declaration in the light of the sense that my friends would probably after all not enjoy a monopoly of Mr. Saltram. I won't pretend to have taken his vast measure on that first occasion, but I think I had achieved a glimpse of what the privilege of his acquaintance might mean for many persons in the way of charges accepted. He had been a great experience, and it was this, perhaps, that had put me into the frame of foreseeing how we should all, sooner or later, have the honor of dealing with him as a whole. Whatever impression I then received of the amount of this total, I had a full enough vision of the patience of the Mullvilles. He was staying with them all the winter: Adelaide dropped it in a tone which drew the sting from the temporary. These excellent people might indeed have been content to give the circle of hospitality a diameter of six months; but if they didn't say that he was stay-
