“Another of your awfully decent chaps!” This from his brother. “My dear Tony, you discover a new one every week. Only I wish you wouldn’t thrust them on to us. What about the charming painter who borrowed your links and never returned them, and that delightful author-fellow who was so beastly clever that he had to fly the country——?”
“Oh, chuck it, Rupert. Of course one makes mistakes. I learnt a lot from Allison, and I know he always meant to send the links back and forgot; anyhow he’s quite welcome to them. But this chap’s all right—he is really—he looks jolly decent——”
“Yes; but, Tony,” said his mother, laughing, “I agree with Rupert there. Make your odd acquaintances if you like, but don’t bring them down on to us; for instance, that horrid little fat man you liked so much at one time, the poet——”
“Oh, Trelawny. He’s all right now. He’s going to do great things one day.”
“And meanwhile borrows money that he never intends to repay. No, Tony, these sudden acquaintances are generally a mistake, take my word for it. How long have you known this man downstairs?”
“Only a minute. He’s just arrived with his wife and two little girls.”
“And you know him already?”
“Well, you see his wife wanted these rooms—said she ordered them or something—and then went for old Bannister about it, and he, naturally enough, said that we’d got them; and then he stuck it on about their rooms and said that they were much the nicest rooms in the place, and then she went off fairly quiet.”
“Well, where did the man come in?”
“He didn’t at all, and, from the look of her, I shouldn’t think that he ever does. But I went up and said I was jolly sorry, and all that sort of thing——”