"Lancelot."
"Lancelot what?"
"Only Lancelot! Mr. Lancelot."
"Why, that's like your Mary Ann!"
"So it is!" he laughed, more bitterly than cordially; "it never struck me before. Yes, we are a pair."
"How did you stumble on this place?"
"I didn't stumble. Deliberate, intelligent selection. You see, it's the next best thing to Piccadilly. You just cross Waterloo Bridge, and there you are at the centre, five minutes from all the clubs. The natives have not yet risen to the idea."
"You mean the rent," laughed Peter. "You're as canny and careful as a Scotch professor. I think it's simply grand the way you've beaten out those shillings, in defiance of your natural instincts. I should have melted them years ago. I believe you have got some musical genius after all."
"You over-rate my abilities," said Lancelot, with the whimsical expression that sometimes flashed across his face even in his most unamiable moments. "You must deduct the thalers I made in exhibitions. As for living in cheap lodgings, I am not at all certain it's an economy, for every now and again it occurs to you that you are saving an awful lot, and you take a hansom on the strength of it."
"Well, I haven't torn up that cheque yet—"