make it worse, no longer young fools. Young and a fool, people make
excuses. Say, 'Fool? Yes, but so young!' But old and a fool--not a
word to say, what, what! Silly rot at forty." He clutched his
side-whiskers with frenzied hands. He seemed to comb them to a more
bristling rage.

"Dare say you'll both come croppers. Not surprise me. Silly old
George, course, course! Hoped better of Ruggles, though. Ruggles
different from old George. Got a brain. But can't use it. Have old
George wed to a charwoman presently. Hope she'll be a worker. Need to
be--support you both, what, what!"

I mean to say, he was coming it pretty thick, since he could not have
forgotten that each time I had warned him so he could hasten to save
his brother from distressing mesalliances. I refer to the affair with
the typing-girl and to the later entanglement with a Brixton milliner
encountered informally under the portico of a theatre in Charing Cross
Road. But he was in no mood to concede that I had thus far shown a
scrupulous care in these emergencies. Peppery he was, indeed. He
gathered hat and stick, glaring indignantly at each of them and then
at us.

"Greened me fair, haven't you, about money? Quite so, quite so! Not
hear from you then till next quarter. No telegraphing--no begging
letters. Shouldn't a bit know what to make of them. Plenty you got to
last. Say so yourselves." He laughed villainously here. "Morning,"
said he, and was out.

"Old Nevil been annoyed by something," said the Honourable George
after a long silence. "Know the old boy too well. Always tell when