"Nobby," said Charlie, waving all this trash aside, "to put it plainly, you got to go and tell the old boy how it's done ... I mean ... you got to let him know how it's done. Don't make a fool of yourself," he added, looking doubtfully at his young cousin, and wondering whether this piece of generosity were wise or not, "I'm not going to be butchered to make a Roman holiday."
"I'll go, Charlie," said Nobby humbly, "I understand. But can't anyone see to something of the Ready? After all, I've got to get there, and I shall have to give something to the servants."
"I'll ask Mary," said Charlie nobly.
"No you don't," shouted Nobby, "she turned me down this morning. Damnably!"
"Oh, but this is work," said Charlie reproachfully.
Nobby looked grim. "It's spondulicks, anyway," he said. And Charlie very reluctantly pulled out four pounds and a few shillings.
Nobby pocketed it without much gratitude.
"You know, Nobby," said Charlie, watching his expression, "if you pull it off sensibly, he won't forget you!"
"Oh, I know all about that," said Nobby wearily. "They're awfully grateful, but one never gets one's fingers on the flimsies. I'll make a last shot, anyhow."
Charlie Fitzgerald did not stand on ceremony; he knew the kind hearts of the Clutterbucks too well; he wrote a longish letter to Mrs. Clutterbuck about his cousin Robert in the Heralds' College, introduced a word or two about his late father and grandfather, the Lord Storrington of the famine, said the lad would be stopping in their neighbourhood and would really like to come over, enclosed a stamped envelope, "The Hon. Robert Parham, Habberton Park, Barnstaple," and within forty-eight hours Nobby, carefully primed as to where he had been stopping in the neighbourhood of Croydon, and whom exactly he would see and meet, was off to pass a week-end at The Plâs.