“Gosh, don’t I know it!” said Bart. “But what’s got his goat this morning?”

“That fool Aubrey. Reuben says he’s got into debt again.”

“Hell!” said Bart. “That puts the lid on my chances of getting the Guv’nor to dip his hand in the coffer. Lend me a fiver, Ray, will you?”

“What do you want it for?”

“I owe most of it.”

“Well, go on owing it,” recommended Raymond. “I’ll see you farther before I let you owe it to me.”

“Blast you! Con?”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

Bart turned to Clara. “Auntie? Come on, be a sport, Clara! I swear I’ll pay it back.”

“I don’t know where you think I could find five pounds,” she said cautiously. “What with the vet’s bill, and me needin’ a new pair of boots, and “

“You can’t refuse your favourite nephew! Now, you know you haven’t the heart to, Clara darling!” wheedled Bart.

“Get along with you! You’re a bad boy,” Clara told him fondly. “I know where your money goes! You can’t get round your old aunt.”

Bart grinned at her, apparently satisfied with the result of his coaxing. Clara went on grumbling about her poverty and his shamelessness; Conrad and Raymond began to argue about a capped hock, a discussion which soon attracted Clara’s attention; and by the time Vivian Penhallow came into the dining-room the four members of the family already seated at the table were loudly disputing about the rival merits of gorse, an ordinary chain, or a strap-and-sinker to cure a stall-kicker.

Vivian Penhallow, Surrey-born, was a fish out of water amongst the Penhallows. She had met Eugene in London, had fallen in love with him almost at first sight, and had married him in spite of the protests of her family. While not denying that his birth was better than their own, that his manners were engaging, and his person attractive, Mr and Mrs Arden had felt that they would have preferred for their daughter a husband with some more tangible means of supporting her than they could perceive in Eugene’s desultory but graceful essays and poems.