If there’s one person anybody but a sapskull would have taken precious care not to rub against, it’s you! Good God, where does he think he’d be, if you was to abandon him? Don’t you tell me he hasn’t cost you a small fortune, because I’m not a gapeseed! Why you didn’t lose your temper and tell him he’d had his last groat from you I shall never know!”

“Yes, you will,” responded Sir Waldo calmly. “I didn’t lose my temper because that is precisely what I had told him.”

George was so much surprised that he halted in his tracks. “You had? Waldo, you don’t mean it!”

“No, probably not, but today’s outburst shows that Laurie thinks I do. So now you know why I hadn’t the smallest inclination to lose my temper. For how much longer do you mean to stand like a stock, attracting the attention of the vulgar? Do come out of your trance, George!”

Thus adjured, Mr.Wingham fell into step again beside his tall cousin, saying earnestly: “I was never more glad of anything in my life! Now, don’t waver from it, I beg of you! Damme if I wouldn’t prefer to see you wasting the ready on a pack of ragged brats than on that young once-a-week man!”

“Oh, George, no!” expostulated Sir Waldo. “Coming it too strong!”

“Oh, no, I ain’t!” said George obstinately. “When I think of the things he said today, and the gratitude he owes you—”

“He owes me none.”

“What?”George gasped, once more coming to a sudden halt.

His cousin’s hand, gripping his arm, forced him onward. “No, George: not again!” said Sir Waldo firmly. “I’ve done very badly by Laurie. If you don’t know that, I do.”

“Well, I don’t!” George declared. “From the time he was at Harrow you’ve positively lavished money on him! You never did so for Julian!”

“Oh, I’ve never done more for Julian than send him a guinea under the seal, when he was a schoolboy!” said Sir Waldo, laughing.