If you knew how the Judsons have married and multiplied, and lost themselves among herds of other people, you wouldn't care about tracing the ramifications of _their_ family tree," said Mr.Sheldon, with a weary sigh.

"So be it," exclaimed Mr.Hawkehurst carelessly; "we'll leave the Judsons alone, and go in for Matthew Haygarth." He spoke with the air of an archaeological Hercules, to whom difficulties were nothing.

It seemed as if he would have been quite ready to "go in" for some sidereal branch of the Plantagenets, or the female descendants of the Hardicanute family, if George Sheldon had suggested that the intestate's next of kin was to be found _there_.
"Mat Haygarth, by all means," he said.

He was on jolly-good-fellow-ish terms with the dead-and-gone grocer's son already, and had the tone of a man who had been his friend and boon companion.

"Mat Haygarth is our man.