"Right ho," said Hugo, a game loser. He was disappointed, but not surprised. All along he had felt that that Hot Spot business was merely a Utopian dream. There are some men who are temperamentally incapable of parting with five hundred pounds, and his uncle Lester was one of them. But in the matter of a smaller sum it might be that he would prove more pliable, and of this smaller sum Hugo had urgent need. "Well, then, putting that aside," he said, "there's another thing I'd like to chat about for a moment, if you don't mind." "I do," said Mr. Carmody. "There's a big fight on to-night at the Albert Hall. Eustace Rodd and Cyril Warburton are going twenty rounds for the welter-weight championship. Have you ever noticed," said Hugo, touching on a matter to which he had given some thought, "a rather odd thing about boxers these days? A few years ago you never heard of one that wasn't Beefy This or Porky That or Young Cat's-meat or something. But now they're all Claudes and Harolds and Cuthberts. And when you consider that the heavyweight champion of the world is actually named Eugene, it makes you think a bit. However, be that as it may, these two birds are going twenty rounds to-night, and there you are." "What," inquired Mr. Carmody, "is all this drivel?" He eyed his young relative balefully. In an association that had lasted many years, he had found Hugo consistently irritating to his nervous system, and he was finding him now rather more trying than usual. "I only meant to point out that Ronnie Fish has sent me a ticket, and I thought that, if you were to spring a tenner for the necessary incidental expenses--bed, breakfast, and so on ... well, there I would be, don't you know." "You mean you wish to go to London to see a boxing contest?" "That's it." "Well, you're not going. You know I have expressly forbidden you to visit London. The last time I was weak enough to allow you to go there, what happened? You spent the night in a police station." "Yes, but that was Boat-Race Night." "And I had to pay five pounds for your fine." Hugo dismissed the past with a gesture. "The whole thing," he said, "was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and, if you ask me, the verdict of posterity will be that the policeman was far more to blame than I was. They're letting a bad type of men into the force nowadays. I've noticed it on several occasions. Besides, it won't happen again." "You are right. It will not." "On second thoughts, then, you will spring that tenner?" "On first, second, third, and fourth thoughts I will do nothing of the kind." "But, Uncle, do you realize what it would mean if you did?" "The interpretation I would put upon it is that I was suffering from senile decay." "What it would mean is that I should feel you trusted me, Uncle Lester, that you had faith in me. There's nothing so dangerous as a want of trust. Ask anybody. It saps a young man's character." "Let it," said Mr. Carmody callously.