"Within ten years five of us will be married and five will be dead," cried O'Rane, writing rapidly. "(Every one of us will have made such a fool of himself that it's wishing himself dead he'll be.) One will have had to cut the country. One will have lost all his money. As you seem to like jam with your powder, I've said that one—and not more—will achieve fame—by the mercy of God; one—and not more—will make great money."
The prophecy, delivered with apparent sincerity in the mellow atmosphere of dinner to a score of men between the optimistic ages of twenty and twenty-five, was, on the face of it, discouraging. He who achieved fame and he who amassed a fortune were condemned, with the rest, to pass through the contemplation of suicide or, at least, the prayerful expectation of death. And the moment for the forecast was undoubtedly ill-chosen. Seventeen of the twenty members of the Phoenix had spent the last week wrestling with examiners in their final schools; O'Rane spoke with the subconscious triumph of one who was not bidding farewell to Oxford for another year; and, if a vote had been taken, nine-tenths of his friends would have accorded him the scant portion of worldly success with which Providence in his grudging prophecy would crown their ambitions.
"Dry up, Raney," growled Jack Waring. "It's all very well for you——"
"It's a twenty-to-one chance I'm giving you," O'Rane pointed out. "You might bring off the double event. And get a wife thrown in. It would be no fun, if we all leaped to the top. 'When everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody.'"
Waring jumped up and turned to the president.
"I have to report Mr. O'Rane for singing at dinner, sir. A good, thumping fine, Sinks," he added.
Jack Summertown intercepted the ruling.
"On a point of order, sir; was that singing? If it was—oh, my Lord!"
Sinclair rose majestically from the presidential chair and turned his eyes from one disputant to the other.
"The accused is acquitted, but he's not to do it again," he ruled diplomatically. "I have to censure Lord Summertown for addressing the Chair without rising."