“Are you going into the Rooms this morning?” he enquired.
Lord Felixstowe shook his head gloomily.
“They’ve skinned me,” he confessed. “I got a fifty-pound note from an old aunt, to bring her out as far as Bordighera. She don’t speak the lingo, and I am rather a nut at it. I landed her, all right, day before yesterday, dropped off here on my way home, and lost the lot.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“Borrow a pony from you, old top,” was the prompt reply.
Jacob counted out the notes, which the young man received with enthusiasm.
“I like a chap who parts like a sportsman,” he declared. “Now I wonder if there is anything I can do for you. Would you like me to look you up about dinner time at your hotel? If you are alone, I dare say I could find you a pal or two.”
“Come and dine with me, by all means,” Jacob invited, “but I have a few acquaintances here, and if I want any more no doubt I shall be able to pick them up.”
The young man looked at his watch.
“I have an appointment at table number five and a louis to go on number fourteen, in a few minutes,” he declared. “So long.”