"Yes," said Ben, with surprise. "But how could you know?"
"I guessed it," said Toby. "I'm not such a fool as I look."
"I didn't know you were so clever," said Ben. "Did you also guess that poor Bertrand is alive?"
"Alive? What on earth do you mean?" Toby asked.
"I don't mean anything on earth," said Ben. "That's just it. Alicia's taken to spiritualism and she communicates with him every day."
Toby whistled. "That's topping," he said. "They ought to know everything up there: I wonder if I could get her to ask him for a winner."
"My dear boy," said Ben, "are you betting again?"
"Only now and then," he said. "And I have such rotten luck. It would pay owners to make me an allowance to keep off their horses. But what I came about," he went on, "is what is called my future. I wish you'd talk to the governor about it. He's dead set on my going into Uncle Arthur's office when I come down; but that means all kinds of restrictions. And how am I to keep up my cricket? I want to play seriously for a few seasons; they've got me down for Middlesex. I can see now that I've been rather an ass not working harder. I might have got a job then as a Sports Master at some big school, but even a Sports Master, it seems, must know something. There's always a catch somewhere. So far as the winter goes, I'm not so hopeless, because you can get jobs now as Master of Ceremonies at the Swiss hotels—to arrange dancing and ice competitions. I know two or three men who do that and have a topping time."
It was at this moment that the door of Ben's room opened and Miss Marquand's head appeared round it.