The talk was all about money. One gentleman with thick lips and a hooked nose said that he had done good business that afternoon. He had bought ten thousand Northern Railways, having received private information that the men had decided to strike for an all-round decrease in wages, and they had fallen three points when the news had become public. He had dropped quite a tidy little sum.
Another man said that that sort of business was too risky for him. He believed in doing a steady safe business. If he lost fifteen per cent on his capital every year he was quite satisfied.
Another said he had been looking all his life for a safe investment that would lose ten per cent without your having to worry about it, and he didn't believe it was to be found.
All these men talked in quite an uneducated way, and their manners were not attractive. They wore a good deal of heavy jewellery, and clothes that looked as if they were new, but not one of them looked or spoke like a gentleman.
Mr. Perry, who had taken his part in the conversation, and had been treated with some deference, drew me away towards another group, saying as we crossed the room that he wanted me to see all sorts, and I must try to make myself as much one of them as possible. I should now be introduced to some racing men.
But before we reached them, Mr. Perry was hailed in a cheery but somewhat vinous voice by a man who was reclining in the depths of an easy chair by an open window, with a table at his side on which was a bottle of Maraschino half empty, and a good-sized glass of the same half full. His appearance was not markedly different from that of dozens of elderly men whom you may see after lunch at any London club, taking their ease, and perhaps their little nap, and never far removed in point of time or space from refreshment of a spirituous nature. He was sleek and well-groomed, and the tint of his face was only a trifle more plum-coloured than might betoken abstemious living.
"Well, old Perry," said this cheerful gentleman in his mellow voice, but without shifting his semi-recumbent position, "what are you going to do to raise us this afternoon? Come and help me buzz this bottle, and show your sympathy with the rich."
Mr. Perry seemed to look at the speaker, the bottle, and me, all at the same time, but with a different expression for each.
"Allow me," he said, "to introduce my young friend, John Howard, who comes from the Highlands—Lord Charles Delagrange. He is anxious to see something of life amongst the rich, and I am showing him round. Naturally, he has never been in a place like this before, and——"