“Haven’t seen you since the War,” he said. “How’s your wife?”

“Thanks,” said Soames coldly, “well enough.”

Some hidden jest curved, for a moment, George’s fleshy face, and gloated from his eye.

“That Belgian chap, Profond,” he said, “is a member here now. He’s a rum customer.”

“Quite!” muttered Soames. “What did you want to see me about?”

“Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. I suppose he’s made his Will.”

“Yes.”

“Well, you or somebody ought to give him a look up — last of the old lot; he’s a hundred, you know. They say he’s like amummy. Where are you goin’ to put him? He ought to have a pyramid by rights.”

Soames shook his head. “Highgate, the family vault.”

“Well, I suppose the old girls would miss him, if he was anywhere else. They say he still takes an interest in food. Hemight last on, you know. Don’t we GET anything for the old Forsytes? Ten of them — average age eighty-eight — I worked itout. That ought to be equal to triplets.”

“Is that all?” said Soames. “I must be getting on.”

‘You unsociable devil,’ George’s eyes seemed to answer.

“Yes, that’s all: Look him up in his mausoleum — the old chap might want to prophesy.” The grin died on the rich curvesof his face, and he added: “Haven’t you attorneys invented a way yet of dodging this damned income tax? It hits the fixedinherited income like the very deuce. I used to have two thousand five hundred a year; now I’ve got a beggarly fifteenhundred, and the price of living doubled.”

“Ah!” murmured Soames, “the turf’s in danger.”

Over George’s face moved a gleam of sardonic self-defence.