"

"Rummy go!" remarked Gammon.

"When I was a lad," pursued the other, after sipping at his refilled
glass, "I lived just by an old church in the City, and I knew the
verger, and he used to let me look over the registers. I think that's
what gave me my turn for genealogy. I believe there are fellows who get
a living by hunting up pedigrees; that would just suit me, if I only
knew how to start in the business."

Gammon looked up and asked abruptly.

"Know anybody called Quodling?"

"Quodling? No one personally. But there's a firm of Quodling,
brushmakers or something."

"Oil and colourmen?"

"Yes, to be sure. Quodling? Now I come to think of it--why do you ask?"

"There's a man in the City called Quodling, a silk broker. For private
reasons I should like to know something about him."

Greenacre gazed absently at his friend, like one who tries to piece
together old memories.

"Lost it," he muttered at length in a discontented tone. "Something
about a Mrs. Quodling and a lawsuit--big lawsuit that used to be talked
about when I was a boy. My father was a lawyer, you know."

"Was he? It's the first time you ever told me," replied Gammon with a
chuckle.

"Nonsense! I must have mentioned it many a time. I've often noticed,
Gammon, how very defective your memory is. You should use a mnemonic
system. I made a splendid one some years ago; it helped me immensely."

"I could have felt sure," said Gammon, "that you told me once your
father was a coal merchant."

"Why, so he was--later on. Am I to understand, Gammon, that you accuse
me of distorting facts?"

With the end of his third tumbler there had come upon Greenacre a
tendency to maudlin dignity and sensitiveness; he laid a hand on his
friend's arm and looked at him with pained reproach.

"Gammon! I was never inclined to mendacity, though I confess to
mendicity I have occasionally fallen. To you, Gammon, I could not lie;
I respect you, I admire you, in spite of the great distance between us
in education and habits of mind. If I thought you accused me of
falsehood, my dear Gammon, it would distress me deeply. Assure me that
you don't. I am easily put out to-day. The death of poor Bolsover--my
friend before he succeeded to the title. And that reminds me. But for a
mere accident I might myself at this moment have borne a title. My
mother, before her marriage, refused the offer of a man who rose to
wealth and honours, and only a year or two ago died a baronet.