moderate fortune, inherited from his mother, of which he was
sufficiently careful; but he loved races, and read sporting
papers; he was addicted to hunting and billiards; he shot
pigeons,--and, so Mr Wharton had declared calumniously more than
once to an intimate friend,--had not an H in his vocabulary.
The poor man did drop an aspirate now and again; but he knew his
defect and strove hard, and with fair average success, to
overcome it. But Mr Wharton did not love him, and they were not
friends. Perhaps neither did Mrs Roby love him very ardently.
She was at any rate almost always willing to leave her own house
to come to the Square, and on such occasions Mr Roby was always
willing to dine at the Nimrod, the club which it delighted him to
frequent.

Mr Wharton on entering his own house, met his son on the
staircase. 'Do you dine at home to-day, Everett?'

'Well, sir, no, sir. I don't think I do. I think I half
promised to dine with a fellow at the club.'

'Don't you think you'd make things meet more easily about the end
of the year if you dined oftener here, where you have nothing to
pay, and less frequently at the club, where you pay for
everything?'

'But what should I save you would lose, sir. That's the way I
look at it.'

'Then I advise you to look at it the other way, and leave me to
take care of myself. Come in here, I want to speak to you.'