The old Tower becomes the stage for a family drama where wit, learning, and wounded pride meet the hard facts of money and inheritance. As the Caxtons settle into their ancestral home, Mr. Caxton turns even a fishpond into a comic lesson in philosophy, while Pisistratus begins to see both the estate's hidden value and the crushing limits of capital. Beneath the household humor lies deeper sorrow: the collapse of Mr. Caxton's unfinished "Great Book," a symbol of frustrated genius and labor wasted by circumstance. Around this quiet ruin gather vivid portraits of the family. Uncle Jack's reckless generosity, Blanche's sensitive intelligence, and the mother's social ambition and practical pride all shape life at the Tower, even as Roland's dry realism exposes the debt that threatens their comfort. A locked room yields relics of a buried past—a cradle, toys, books, and an ancestral portrait—that awaken grief, mystery, and Blanche's deepening attachment to Roland. Through it all, Pisistratus resolves to work, prosper, and help restore both the family fortunes and the unfinished hopes of the house. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
