"I'll give you something to do. Sit down. You've heard what's happened to my uncle?"
"I remember your telling me you were with an uncle, but I don't know how many uncles you have nor to which of them you're referring."
"I have, or, rather, had, only one uncle, and last night he committed suicide in the Brighton train."
"Great Scott! Whatever for?"
"That's it. I'll tell you in as few words as possible what the position is. He's left a daughter, an only child, who is now an orphan, to whom I'm engaged to be married. To her he was not--well, all that a father might have been; he drank, and he womanised."
"Did he? Nice man!"
"That's precisely what he was not--a nice man. She knew very little about his private affairs, though quite as much as she wanted. He may have killed himself because he was financially wrong, though, personally, I doubt it, or for any one of a score of reasons. You'll guess the state of mind she's in."
"Naturally; in a case like that it's those who are left who suffer most."
"Of course. She's anxious, before all else, to know where she stands--that is, to know the worst. His affairs were in the hands of a solicitor named Wilkes."
"I know him--Stephen Wilkes; he's an able man."