“Well, poor old Turk, he is rather seedy,” said Jock. “Can’t sleep, and has headaches! But ‘tis a regular case of having put him to flight!”
“Well, I’ve done with him,” said Bobus, “since there’s a popular prejudice against flogging, especially one’s elder brother. This is a delicate form of intimation that he intends doing the dolce at mother’s expense.”
“The poor old chap has been an ornamental appendage so long that he can’t make up his mind to anything else,” said Jock.
“He is no worse off than the rest of us,” said Bobus.
“In age, if in nothing else.”
“The more reason against throwing away a chance. The yacht, too! I thought there was a Quixotic notion of not dipping into that Elf’s money. I’m sure poor mother is pinching herself enough.”
“I don’t think Ali knows when he spends money more than when he spends air,” returned Jock. “The Petrel can hardly cost as much in a month as I have seen him get through in a week, protesting all the while that he was living on absolutely nothing.”
“I know. You may be proud to get him down Oxford Street under thirty shillings, and he never goes out in the evening much under half that.”
“Yes, he told me selling my horses was shocking bad economy.”
“Well, it was your own doing, having him up here,” said Bobus.