Sir Thomas passed the handkerchief over his forehead.
"In the past, perhaps," he resumed, "our relations have not been quite—the fault was mine. I have always endeavored to do my duty. It is a difficult task to look after a young man of your age—"
His lordship's sense of his grievance made him eloquent.
"Dash it all!" he cried. "That's just what I jolly well complain of. Who the dickens wanted you to look after me? Hang it, you've kept your eye on me all these years like a frightful policeman! You cut off my allowance right in the middle of my time at college, just when I needed it most, and I had to come and beg for money whenever I wanted to buy a cigarette. I looked a fearful ass, I can tell you! Men who knew me used to be dashed funny about it. I'm sick of the whole bally business. You've given me a jolly thin time all this while, and now I'm going to get a bit of my own back. Wouldn't you, Pitt, old man?"
Jimmy, thus suddenly appealed to, admitted that, in his lordship's place, he might have experienced a momentary temptation to do something of the kind.
"Of course," said his lordship; "any fellow would."
"But, Spencer, let me—"
"You've soured my life," said his lordship, frowning a tense, Byronic frown. "That's what you've done—soured my whole bally life. I've had a rotten time. I've had to go about touching my friends for money to keep me going. Why, I owe you a fiver, don't I, Pitt, old man?"
It was a tenner, to be finnickingly accurate about details, but Jimmy did not say so. He concluded, rightly, that the memory of the original five pounds which he had lent Lord Dreever at the Savoy Hotel had faded from the other's mind.
"Don't mention it," he said.