“To keep you out of mischief!” replied the Earl, with more promptitude than wisdom.

“Oho!” said the Viscount, quizzing him wickedly. “So that was it, was it? Well, I’ve long suspected that you were not—in your day—such a pattern of rectitude as you would have us believe!”

“Pattern of rectitude! Of course I was no such thing!” said the Earl, repulsing the suggestion with loathing.

“Of course you weren’t!” said the Viscount, laughing at him.

“No! I sowed my wild oats just as any youngster must, but I never consorted with rake-shames!”

This announcement put a quick end to the Viscount’s laughter. He directed a searching look at his father from under suddenly frowning brows, and demanded: “What’s this? If it is to my address, you’ll permit me to tell you that you’ve been misinformed, sir!”

“No, no!” replied his lordship testily. “I’m talking of Simon, muttonhead!”

“Simon! Why, what the devil has he been doing to provoke you?”

“Don’t tell me you aren’t very well aware that he’s for ever on the spree with a set of rascally scrubs, knocking up disgraceful larks, committing every sort of extravagant folly, creating riot and rumpus—”

“Well, I do tell you so, sir!” said the Viscount, interrupting this wholesale indictment without ceremony. “I don’t see much of him, but you may depend upon it that I should hear of it fast enough if he’d got into the sort of company you’re describing! Good God, anyone to hear you would suppose Simon had joined the Beggars’ Club, or ended up each night either in the Finish, or in a Round-house! I daresay you wouldn’t care for the set he runs with—I don’t care for them myself, but that’s because I’m nine-and-twenty, not three-and-twenty, and have outgrown the restiness of my salad days. But they’re not rascally, and they’re certainly not scrubs! Coming it much too strong, Father, believe me!”