"How is Hugh?" the young man went on, without apparently being the least conscious of any difference between the two brothers. "Down at your place in Hampshire, isn't he? Lucky chap; though they tell me you haven't got many pheasants." "I beg your pardon?" "You don't preserve?" "No, I do not preserve." John would have liked to add "except the decencies of intercourse between old and young in a club smoking-room"; but he refrained. "Perhaps you're right," said the young man. "These are tough times for landed proprietors. Well, give my love to Hugh when you see him," he added, and turning on his heel disappeared into the haze of a more remote portion of the smoking-room. "Who is that youth?" John demanded. The old members shook their heads helplessly, and one of the waiters was called up to be interrogated. "Mr. Winnington-Carr, I believe, sir," he informed them. "How long has he been a member?" "About a week, I believe, sir." John looked daggers of exclamation at the other members. "We shall have perambulators waiting in the lobby before we know where we are," he said, bitterly. Everybody agreed that these ill-considered elections were a scandal to a famous club, and John, relinquishing the obsession of sex as a topic, took up the obsession of youth, which he most convincingly proved to be the curse of modern life. It was probably Mr. Winnington-Carr's election that brought home to John the necessity of occupying himself immediately with his brother's future; at this rate he should find Hugh himself a member of his club before he knew where he was. "I'm worrying about my young brother," he told Miss Hamilton next day, and looked at her sharply to watch the effect of this remark. "Why, has he been misbehaving himself again?" "No, not exactly misbehaving; but a friend of his has just been elected to my club, and I don't think it's good for Hugh to be hanging about in idleness. I do wish I could find the address of that man Raikes from British Honduras." "Where is it likely to be?" "It was a visiting-card. It might be anywhere." "If it was a visiting-card, the most likely place to find it is in one of your waistcoat-pockets." John regarded his secretary with the admiration that such a practical suggestion justified, and rang the bell. "Maud, please bring down all my waistcoats," he told his valeting parlor-maid, who presently appeared in the library bowed down by a heap of clothes as a laborer is bowed down by a truss of hay. In the twenty-seventh waistcoat that was examined the card was found: * * * * * Mr. Sydney Ricketts. 14 Lyonesse Road, Belize, Balam, S.W., British Honduras. "I thought his name was Raikes," John muttered, indignantly. "Never mind. A rose by any other name...." Miss Hamilton began. John might almost have been said to interrupt what she was going to say with an angry glare; but she only laughed merrily at his fierce expression.