ed
to speak a word for him in the right quarter when opportunity offered.

"By the way," Gammon remarked carelessly, "are these Quodlings any
relation to Quodling the silk broker in the City?"

His companion smiled over the rim of a deep tumbler, and continued to
smile through a long draught.

"Why do you ask?"

"No particular reason. Happen to know the other man--by sight."

"They're brothers--Quodling senior and the broker."

"What's the joke?" asked Gammon, as the other still smiled.

"Old joke--very old joke. The two men just as unlike as they could
be--in face, I mean. I never took the trouble to inquire about it, but
I've been told there was a lawsuit years ago, something to do with the
will of Lord somebody, who left money to old Mrs. Quodling--who wasn't
old then. Don't know the particulars, but I'm told that something
turned on the likeness of the younger boy to the man who made the
will--see!"

"Ah! Oh!" muttered Gammon reflectively.

"An uppish, high-notioned fellow, Quodling the broker. Won't have
anything to do with his brother. He's nothing much himself; went
through the court not very long ago."

Gammon promised himself to look into this story when he had time. That
it could in any way concern him he did not seriously suppose, but he
liked to track things out. Some day he would have another look at
Quodling the broker, who so strongly resembled Mrs. Clover's husband.
Both of them, it seemed, bore a likeness to some profligate aristocrat.
Just the kind of thing to interest that queer fish Greenacre.

In the height of the London season nothing pleased Gammon more than to
survey the streets from an omnibus. Being just now a man of leisure he
freely indulged himself, spending an hour or two each day in the
liveliest thoroughfares. It was a sure way of forgetting his cares.
Sometimes he took a box place and chatted with the driver, or he made
acquaintances, male and female, on the cosy cross seats just broad
enough for two. The London panorama under a sky of June feasted his
laughing eyes. Now he would wave a hand to a friend on the pavement or
borne past on another bus; now he would chuckle at a bit of comedy in
real life. Huge hotels and brilliant shops vividly impressed him,
though he saw them for the thousandth time; a new device in advertising
won his ungrudging admiration. Above all he liked to find himself in
the Strand at that hour of the day when east and west show a double
current of co