"You look very fit, Uncle," said Hugo.
Mr. Carmody's reply to this was to make a noise like a buffalo pulling its foot out of a swamp. It might have been intended to be genial, or it might not. Hugo could not tell. However, he was a reasonable young man, and he quite understood that it would be foolish to expect the milk of human kindness instantly to come gushing like a geyser out of a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound uncle who had just been doing bending and stretching exercises. He must be patient and suave—the Sympathetic Nephew.
"I expect it's been pretty tough going, though," he proceeded. "I mean to say, all these exercises and cold showers and lean chops and so forth. Terribly trying. Very upsetting. A great ordeal. I think it's wonderful the way you've stuck it out. Simply wonderful. It's Character that does it. That's what it is. Character. Many men would have chucked the whole thing up in the first two days."
"So would I," said Mr. Carmody, "only that damned doctor made me give him a cheque in advance for the whole course."
Hugo felt damped. He had had some good things to say about Character, and it seemed little use producing them now.
"Well, anyway, you look very fit. Very fit indeed. Frightfully fit. Remarkably fit. Extraordinarily fit." He paused. This was getting him nowhere. He decided to leap straight to the point at issue. To put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. "I say, Uncle Lester, what I really came about this afternoon was a matter of business."
"Indeed? I supposed you had come merely to babble. What business?"
"You know a friend of mine named Fish?"
"I do not know a friend of yours named Fish."
"Well, he's a friend of mine. His name's Fish. Ronnie Fish."