nd at once to be bad friends
with you for life; only when I saw your fiery old phiz at Brahmson's I
felt a sort of something tugging inside my greatcoat like a thief after
my pocket-book, and I kinder knew, as the Americans say, that in half an
hour I should be sitting beneath your hospitable roof."

"I beg your pardon--you will have some whisky." He rang the bell
violently.

"Don't be a fool--you know I didn't mean that. Well, don't let us
quarrel. I have forgiven you for your youthful bounty, and you have
forgiven me for chucking it up; and now we are going to drink to the
_Vaterland_," he added, as Mary Ann appeared with a suspicious alacrity.

"Do you know," he went on, when they had taken the first sip of renewed
amity dissolved in whisky, "I think I showed more musical soul than you
in refusing to trammel my inspiration with the dull rules invented by
fools. I suppose you have mastered them all, eh?" He picked up some
sheets of manuscript. "Great Scot! How you must have schooled yourself
to scribble all this--you, with your restless nature--full scores, too!
I hope you don't offer this sort of thing to Brahmson."

"I certainly went there with that intention," admitted Lancelot. "I
thought I'd catch Brahmson himself in the evening--he's never in when I
call in the morning."

Peter groaned.

"Quixotic as ever! You can't have been long in London then?"

"A year."

"I suppose you'd jump down my throat if I were to ask you how much is
left of that----" he hesitated, then turned the sentence facetiously--"of
those twenty thousand shillings you were cut off with?"

"Let this vile den answer."

"Don't disparage the den; it's not so bad."

"You are right--I may come to worse. I've been an awful ass. You know
how lucky I was while at the Conservatoire--no, you don't. How should
you? Well, I carried off some distinctions and a lot of conceit, and
came over here thinking Europe would be at my feet in a month. I was
only sorry my father died before I could twit him with my triumph.
That's candid, isn't it?"

"Yes; you're not such a prig after all," mused Peter; "I saw the old
man's death in the paper--your brother Lionel became the bart."

"Yes, poor beggar, I don't hate him half so much as I did. He reminds me
of a man invited to dinner which is nothing but flowers and serviettes
and silver plate."

"I'd pawn the plate, anyhow," said Peter, with a little laugh.

"He can't touch anything, I te