“Why do you choose to remind me of that to-night?” he asked sullenly, trying to assert himself.

Eustace took his hand from his shoulder, and fixed his gloomy eyes upon him:

“As I stood in the shadows of your hall just now,” said he slowly, “Anthony Baddlesmere passed out.”

Pangbutt uttered a light cynical laugh:

“What?” said he—“without nodding to you?”

Lovegood’s great brows met in a black frown:

“His eyes were on a broken career.... But I saw that he had not yet become a good beggar.”

A sneer curled the bearded lips of the other:

“And you?” he asked flippantly.

“I am better practised.... I have come to beg for him.”