'Don't know anything about 'em. Bought a few—daresay I've dropped my money.'
'Wilkinson wanted me to buy. Lunched the beast last week, expectin' to get a pointer. Confounded sharp scoundrel, Wilkinson!' And this gentleman smiled quite seraphically. 'Still expectin'. I see Oneida Centrals have reached a premium. Bought a lot eight months ago for a song. Cheapah to buy 'em, I thought, than waste more money in somethin' I knew as little about! There's luck!' This stage of the conversation found me reflecting upon the degree of depravity involved in getting the better of the business capacity which made its investments on these principles. I did not meditate a defence for my fellow-countrymen, but I thought they had a pretty obvious temptation.
The talk drifted upon clubs, and the gentlemen expressed their preferences. 'Hear you're up for the Army and Navy,' said the rosy-faced one.
'Ye-es. Beastly bore getting in,' returned he of the aquiline nose, dreamily.
'How long?'
''Bout two years, I believe. I'm up again for the United Service, too. Had a fit of economy in '85—year of the Tarantillas smash—you were in that, too, wehn't you?—an' knocked off five o' six o' my clubs. They make no end of a wow about lettin' you in again.'
'Well, the Rag's good enough for me, and the Lyric's convenient to take a lady to. They say the Corinthian's the thing to belong to now, though,' said the round gentleman, tentatively.
'If you have a taste for actresses,' returned the other, with another tender glance at his boot.
Then it appeared, from a remark from the pink-eyed one, that he dined at the Carlton four nights out of seven—stood by the Carlton—hoped he might never enter a better club—never met a cad there in his life. Fairly lived there when he wasn't in Manchester.
'D'you live in Manchester?' drawled the thin gentleman, quite agreeably. Now, what was there in that to make the pink-eyed one angry? Is Manchester a disreputable place to live in? But he was—as angry as possible. The pink spread all over, under his close-trimmed whiskers and down behind his collar. He answered, in extremely rasping and sub-indignant tones, that he had a 'place near it,' and retired from the conversation.