[Illustration: _Bored Spectator_. "'ERE, NOT SO MUCH OF THE
CA-CANNY."]

* * * * *


A DIFFERENCE OF CLASS.

It is without doubt the most expensive hotel on the front, and the
palatial dining-room in which we have just lunched is furnished and
decorated in that sumptuously luxurious style to which only wealth,
untrammelled by art, is able to attain. Personally I cannot afford to
take my meals at such places, and I know that the same holds good of
my fellow-guest, Charteris. Charteris was the best scholar of our
year at Oriel, and since his demobilisation he and his wife have been
living in two rooms, except during the periods when their son joins
them for his holidays from Winchester. But our host is still possessed
of an obstinate wealth which even the War has done little to diminish,
and, as he himself puts it, is really grateful to those of his old
friends who will help him in public to support the ignominy.

At the moment, having finished lunch, we have betaken ourselves to
wicker-chairs in the porch, and Charteris and our host being deep in a
golf discussion I venture once more to turn a covert attention to the
exceedingly splendid couple who have just followed us out from the
dining-room. I noticed them first on my arrival, when they were just
getting out of their Rolls-Royce, and the admiration which I then
conceived for them was even further enhanced during lunch by a near
view of the lady's diamonds and of the Cinquevalli-like dexterity
shown by her husband in balancing a full load of peas on the concave