As long as he could afford to belong to one or two golf clubs and have something over for those small loans which, in certain of the numerous circles in which he moved, were the inevitable concomitant of popularity, he was satisfied. He was not the type to waste time in vain regrets. Until six months before, when he had become engaged to Claire Fenwick, he had found nothing to quarrel with in his lot. But it seemed to be troubling the poor fellow with the studs a great deal, so, realizing that tastes differ and that there is no accounting for them, he looked at him commiseratingly. You'll be able to get those children of yours some bread-I expect you can get a lot of bread for a shilling. It was a relief to Bill when the arrival of the waiter with food caused a break in the conversation and enabled him adroitly to change the subject. She developed this theme to-day, not only on the stairs leading to the grillroom, but even after they had seated themselves at their table. Bill found himself the possessor of that most ironical thing, a moneyless title. Bill was at Cambridge when his predecessor in the title, his Uncle Philip, was performing the concluding exercises of the dissipation of the Dawlish doubloons, a feat which he achieved so neatly that when he died there was just enough cash to pay the doctors, and no more. A breezy disregard for the preservation of the pence was a family trait. Nor were his successors backward in the spending art. It was in the days of the Regency that the Dawlish coffers first began to show signs of cracking under the strain, in the era of the then celebrated Beau Dawlish. He may have gone to telephone or something, what?' Indeed, with the single exception of the Earl of Wetherby, whose finances were so irregular that he could not be said to possess an income at all, he was the poorest man of his rank in the British Isles. Worse, he faced them, and in a hoarse but carrying voice he was instructing Heaven to bless his benefactor.Ĭlaire was looking after the stud merchant, as, grasping his wealth, he scuttled up the avenue.Ĭertainly Lord Dawlish would have been more prudent not to have parted with even eleven shillings, for he was not a rich man. He cast a furtive glance behind him in the hope that the disseminator of expiring roosters had vanished, but the man was still at his elbow. For Claire, dear girl, was apt to be unreasonable about these little generosities of his. The fact of the matter was that he had only just finished giving the father of the family his shilling, and he was afraid that Claire had seen him doing it. Bill Dawlish was this fortunate bloke, but, from the look of him as he caught sight of her, one would have said that he did not appreciate his luck.
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