He wrote down the name of a private hotel in the Strand, where he intended to stay, requesting that the portmanteau should be sent there on its arrival. Jumping into a hansom, Roland, who had not recovered his head, gave the address of Gerald's chambers. As they were beginning to spin along the lighted streets, however, he impulsively arrested the man, without warning to Arthur, and substituted Mrs. Gerald Yorke's lodgings. They were close at hand; but that was not his motive. "If we leave the grapes at the chambers, Ger will only entertain his cronies with them--a lot of fast men like himself," explained Roland. "By taking them to Winny's, those poor meek little mites may stand a chance of getting a few. I don't believe they'd ever taste anything good at all but for Mrs. Hamish Channing." Arthur Channing did not understand. Roland enlightened him. Gerald kept up, as might be said, two establishments: chambers for himself and lodgings for his wife. "But that must be expensive," observed Arthur. "Of course it is. Ger goes in for expense and fashion. All well and good if he can _do_ it--and keep it up. I think he has had a windfall from some quarter, for he is launching out uncommonly just now. It can't be from work; he has been taking his ease all the autumn in Tom Fuller's yacht." "I don't quite understand, yet, Roland. Do you mean that Gerald does not live with his wife and children?" "He lives with them after a fashion: gives them one-third of his days and nights, and gives his chambers the other two. You'd hardly recognize him now, he is so grand and stilted up. He'd not nod to me in the street." "Roland!" "It's true. He's as heartless as an owl; Ger always was, you know." "But you are his brother." "Brothers and sisters don't count for much with Gerald. Besides, I'm down in the world, and he'd not take a pitch-fork to lift me up in it again. Would you believe it, Arthur, he likes nothing better than to fling in my teeth that miserable old affair at Galloway's--the banknote. The very last time we ever met--I had run into Winny's lodgings to take some dolls' clothes for Kitty from little Nelly Channing--Ger taunted me with that back affair, and more than hinted, not for the first time, that I'd helped myself to some money lost last summer by Bede Greatorex. If I'd known Ger was at home, I'd never have gone: Miss Nelly might have done her errand herself. Have you read his book?" "Ye-es, I have," answered Arthur, in a rather dubious tone. "Have you?" "No; for I couldn't," candidly avowed Roland. "I got nearly through one volume, and it was a task. It was impossible to make head or tail of it. I know I'm different from other folks, have not half the gumption in me I ought to have, and don't judge of things as they do, which is all through having gone to Port Natal; but _I_ thought the book a rubbishing book, Arthur, and a bad one into the bargain: Where's the use of writing a book if people can't read it?"