"

"I can't see what they gain by that," Jacob confessed, a little
mystified.

The young lordling assumed the patient air of one having to deal with
a person of inferior intelligence.

"Come, come," he remonstrated, "you must know that they're trying to
milk you for a bit. Hasn't Mason suggested your financing his night
club?"

"Some sort of a proposition was made," Jacob acknowledged. "I
declined."

"And Hartwell? Has he mentioned some oil wells in Trinidad?"

"He has," Jacob admitted. "I happen to be doing rather well in oils in
another direction."

"You haven't turned up early one day and found Grace in tears with a
dressmaker's bill on her knee, have you?"

"That, I presume, is to arrive. Lady Powers is dining with me next
Sunday."

"Mind your P's and Q's, then," the young philosopher advised. "She's a
fly little hussy. You see, Pratt, I know the world a bit. Seems to me
I might be rather useful to you--in fact that's why I came here this
morning."

"It is very kind of you," Jacob said. "In what way, may I ask?"

"You see," Lord Felixstowe proceeded, hitching up his trousers and
drawing his chair a little nearer, "I know the ropes, Pratt, and you
don't. You're a very decent fellow who's made a pot of money, and
naturally, just at first, you don't know where you are. You want to
get on, eh, to know the right sort of people, go to the right sort of
places, be seen about with the right sort? Between ourselves, old
thing, Hartwell and Mason aren't the right sort. Suits me to pick
their brains a bit, now and then, when the oof's coming along slowly,
but then I can do what I like--you can't."

"Let me have your concrete proposition, Lord Felixstowe," Jacob
suggested, with a faint smile at the corner of his lips.

"Righto! Tell you what I'm prepared to do. I'll pal you up, take you
to lunch and dinner at the smart places, take you to the Opera right
nights, and the mater shall ask you to dine once in Belgrave Square
and send you cards for her big shows. Then the governor shall ask you
to lunch at his club one day, and if there's anything doing, you
tumble, there are a couple of his clubs I think he could put you up
for. You'll be seen about with me. People will ask who you are. I
shall lay it on thick, of course, about the millions, and before you
know where you are, old bean, you'll be hobnobbing with all the dukes
and duchesses of the land."

"I see," Jacob murmured. "And what are your terms?"

"A t