Perhaps the most admired and popular young man in the town. His
simple-minded pursuit of pleasure occupied a great deal of his time, and
prevented his spending much of it at the Brewery where his brother made it
a point of honour to pass three or four hours every day. But now and again
Mr. Reginald appeared at the enormous pile of buildings, rising out of the
slow-flowing river on which Brockenham stands, and where the famous Family
Ale was composed. Now and then he would amuse himself for an hour,
sauntering in the sunshine about the wide, brightly gravelled yards,
inspecting the huge dray-horses in their stables, exchanging "the top of
the morning," as he facetiously called it to them, with the draymen. He was
seldom tempted to appear where the brewing operations were actually in
process, but he never took his departure without looking in upon his
brother in the spacious and comfortable room overlooking the river in which
that gentleman sat conscientiously for three or four hours a day to read
the _Times_ and the local newspaper.

He paid his call upon the senior partner earlier than usual on the morning
after Mrs. Day's New Year's Dance, but not so early that Sir Francis Forcus
had not received a visitor before him. A visitor who had upset the
equanimity of that always outwardly unruffled, and carefully self-contained
person.

"You are up with the worm, this morning, Reggie," he said.

He was not at all a typical brewer in appearance, his tall, imposing figure
being clothed in no superfluous flesh, his face, with its peculiarly set
expression, being pale and handsome. His black hair, worn rather long,
after the fashion of the day, was brushed smoothly from his temples; he was
shaved but for the close-growing whiskers, which reached half-way down his
cheeks.