"And a racquet," said Mr. Crocker.

"Please listen to what I am saying, Bingley. I am talking about
James. There is a crude American strain in him which seems to
grow worse instead of better. I was lunching with the Delafields
at the Carlton yesterday, and there, only a few tables away, was
James with an impossible young man in appalling clothes. It was
outrageous that James should have been seen in public at all with
such a person. The man had a broken nose and talked through it.
He was saying in a loud voice that made everybody turn round
something about his left-scissors hook--whatever that may have
been. I discovered later that he was a low professional pugilist
from New York--a man named Spike Dillon, I think Captain Wroxton
said. And Jimmy was giving him lunch--at the _Carlton!_"

Mr. Crocker said nothing. Constant practice had made him an adept
at saying nothing when his wife was talking.

"James must be made to realise his responsibilities. I shall have
to speak to him. I was hearing only the other day of a most
deserving man, extremely rich and lavishly generous in his
contributions to the party funds, who was only given a
knighthood, simply because he had a son who had behaved in a
manner that could not possibly be overlooked. The present Court
is extraordinarily strict in its views. James cannot be too
careful. A certain amount of wildness in a young man is quite
proper in the best set, provided that he is wild in the right
company. Every one knows that young Lord Datchet was ejected from
the Empire Music-Hall on Boat-Race night every year during his
residence at Oxford University, but nobody minds. The family