o
words like 'tool,' meaning 'to run hard,' that led me to accept him as
one of us. 'Topping' was another word. Before I was aware of it, and
without his definitely stating the fact, I was treating him as a
public-school man.

"'Do you know Surrey?' he asked me. 'It's rather jolly.'

"'I know Guildford,' I said. 'I was at school there.'

"'Were you really?' he replied, and he began to hum '_As I was going to
Salisbury_,' which is Winchester and nothing else as you will remember.
That settled it, and I asked him whose house he was in. 'Jerry Bud's,'
he told me. 'I was in old Martin's,' I said. 'Did you know Belvoir? He
was in Bud's.'

"'The wine merchant's son?' he said, and I nodded.

"He gave me a curious look at this, as though he was suspicious of me.
'Seen him lately?' he asked. 'Not for years,' I said. 'What became of
him?' 'Oh, I don't know,' he said as though relieved. 'I thought
perhaps _you'd_ kept it up. He went into the army, I believe.'

"We talked on like this, giving each other little items of information
about different fellows we knew, and gradually I gave him my own
history, what there is of it. There isn't much, as you know; Slade,
Beaux Arts, Chelsea, and now Wigborough. He wasn't a bit interested,
didn't seem to know what the word _artist_ meant. Regular stereotyped
public-school man in that. And he didn't offer me a drink, I noticed,
after we had had a peg or two at my expense. However, when the bath was
ready and I got up to go to it, he said, 'I'll take supper with you if
you don't mind.' I said, 'with pleasure,' 'charmed,' of course, and all
that sort of thing, and went off. I met the landlord as I was coming
down and buttonholed him. He told me all about it at once.

"'Mr. Carville, sir? Yes, that's his name. Well, it's a rather curious
case. I don't know what to make of it myself. He came down here with a
party of university gentlemen about a month ago. Very nice gentlemen
they were, sir, and were very free with their money, Mr. Carville
especially. And then they all went off except him with a motorin' party
that spent a week-end here. Mr. Carville he said they was coming back,
you see, and he'd wait for 'em. Well, that's three weeks gone and he's
still here as you see. He says that he expects a cheque any day, but up
to the present----.'

"'Why, hasn't he got any money?' I said.

"'Well, at present, sir, there's a month's bill. Bein' a gentleman, of
course, I knew it 'ud be all righ