he was very much alone in it.

He felt old.

If it is ever allowable for a young man of twenty-six to give himself
up to melancholy reflections, Jimmy Pitt might have been excused for
doing so, at that moment. Nine years ago he had dropped out, or, to
put it more exactly, had been kicked out, and had ceased to belong to
London. And now he had returned to find himself in a strange city.

Jimmy Pitt's complete history would take long to write, for he had
contrived to crowd much into those nine years. Abridged, it may be
told as follows: There were two brothers, a good brother and a bad
brother. Sir Eustace Pitt, the latter, married money. John, his
younger brother, remained a bachelor. It may be mentioned, to check
needless sympathy, that there was no rivalry between the two. John
Pitt had not the slightest desire to marry the lady of his brother's
choice, or any other lady. He was a self-sufficing man who from an
early age showed signs of becoming some day a financial magnate.

Matters went on much the same after the marriage. John continued to go
to the city, Eustace to the dogs. Neither brother had any money of his
own, the fortune of the Pitts having been squandered to the ultimate
farthing by the sportive gentleman who had held the title in the days
of the regency, when White's and the Cocoa Tree were in their prime,
and fortunes had a habit of disappearing in a single evening. Four
years after the marriage, Lady Pitt died, and the widower, having
spent three years and a half at Monte Carlo, working out an infallible
system for breaking the bank, to the great contentment of Mons. Blanc
and the management in general, proceeded to the gardens, where he shot