He has no profession whatever except that of a piping bullfinch, for on attaining the age of twenty-one he came into a property of £400 a year, and for the next three years lived with his widowed mother in a country town, declining politely but quite firmly (and he is not without considerable force of character on a small scale), to take up any profession whatever. He was in every respect (except that of not working for his living), an excellent son to Mrs. Bashton, but when his two elder brothers, one a soldier, the other in the Foreign Office, came to stop with her, he always made a point of retiring to seaside lodgings for the period of their stay, since he objected to their attitude towards him. But on their departure, he always came swiftly back again, and continued to be a charming inmate of Mrs. Bashton’s house, entertaining her rather dull friends for her with excellent good humour, playing bridge at the county club between tea and dinner, and if the weather was fine and warm, indulging in a round of golf, usually on the ladies’ links, in the afternoon. But all this time he was aware that he was in the chrysalis stage, so to speak, and with a view to becoming a butterfly before very long, made a habit (his only indulgence), of reading a large quantity of those periodicals known as Society papers, which chronicle the movements and marriages of the great world. Without knowing any of these stars by sight, except when he had the opportunity of seeing their pictures in the papers, he thus amassed a great quantity of information about their more trivial doings, and advanced his education. In the same way his assiduity for an hour or two every day at the bridge-tables in the club, enabled him to play a very decent game. He never lost his temper at cards (or indeed at anything else), nor wrangled with his partner, nor did he lose his head and make impossible declarations. These qualities, in this feverish, ill-tempered world caused him to be in general request when a card-party was in prospect, and also kept him in pocket-money. He did not win much, but he averaged, as his note-book of winnings and losings told him, a steady pound a week. And as he did not spend much, for he had no expensive tastes of any sort or kind, he found his cigarettes and his disbursements at the golf-club were paid for by his gentle winnings. Subsequently, on his mother’s death, he came into a further £200 a year, and after careful calculation felt himself able, since now board and lodgings were no longer supplied him gratis, to move to London, and by whistling his tunes, and making his bows, manage to procure for himself a really nice little cage with gilded wires, and plenty of food.