"That seems very hard, sir."
"Hard, Brown," he cried, his eyes agleam, "Hard! you call it hard! Why the old monster is a millionaire, and as I told you before I am his only living relative!"
I put on an expression of shocked sympathy. "It is almost incredible!" I gasped.
He gave me a grateful look. "It is true, though!" he declared, "true as gospel. And the only excuse he could rake up for doing it was that I outran the constable a bit at Oxford. He's the meanest old skin-flint in the United Kingdom!"
"I wish I could help you, sir," I murmured in my most reverential manner. "It seems very hard and really wrong, sir, that a nice handsome young gentleman like you, if you'll pardon me for speaking so, sir, to your face, should be tied up in a little village like Newhaven when you might be enjoying yourself and seeing life in London and Paris, sir!"
"As I ought to be," he cried hotly, evidently stirred to anger at my picture of his misfortune. "It's a cursed shame, Brown, a cursed shame!"
"It is indeed, sir. I only wish I could help you, sir."
He gave me a thoughtful look. "You never know," he muttered, "the mouse helped the lion!"
I nearly laughed in his face, but controlling the impulse I said instead—"And with the best of good will, sir!"
"You're a damned good fellow, Brown!" he cried with energy. "And when I am Sir Sefton Dagmar I shall not forget you." His voice sank into a low confidential key. "By the way, Brown, there is a small service you might render me."