"You may think all this a joke," John retorted. "But I don't. I consider it a gross exhibition of bad taste."
"All right. Granted. Let's leave it at that," sighed Hugh, wearily. "But you don't give a fellow much encouragement to own up when he really is in a tight corner. However, personally I've got past minding. If I'm sentenced to penal servitude, it'll be your fault for not listening. Only don't say I disgraced the family name."
"Hugh's right," Aubrey put in. "We really are in a deuce of a hole."
"Disgrace the family name?" John repeated. "Allow me to tell you that when you hawk George round London as your brother, the playwright, I consider that is disgracing the family name."
"So that if I'm arrested for forgery," Hugh asked, "you won't mind?"
"Forgery?" John gasped.
Hugh nodded.
"Yes, we had bad luck in the straight," he murmured, tossing off two more glasses of port. "Cleared every hurdle like a bird and ... however, it's no good grumbling. We just didn't pull it off."
"No," sighed Aubrey. "We were beaten by a short head."
John sat down unsteadily, filled up half a glass of Burgundy with sherry, and drank it straight off without realizing that George's port was even worse than he had supposed.