"Yes, I know him," the young man casually replied.
John was taken aback; it struck him as monstrous that a friend of Hugh's should have secured election to his club. The sanctity of the retreat had been violated, and he could not understand what the world was coming to.
"How is Hugh?" the young man went on, without apparently being the least conscious of any difference between the two brothers. "Down at your place in Hampshire, isn't he? Lucky chap; though they tell me you haven't got many pheasants."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You don't preserve?"
"No, I do not preserve." John would have liked to add "except the decencies of intercourse between old and young in a club smoking-room"; but he refrained.
"Perhaps you're right," said the young man. "These are tough times for landed proprietors. Well, give my love to Hugh when you see him," he added, and turning on his heel disappeared into the haze of a more remote portion of the smoking-room.
"Who is that youth?" John demanded.
The old members shook their heads helplessly, and one of the waiters was called up to be interrogated.
"Mr. Winnington-Carr, I believe, sir," he informed them.