'Crevequer?... Oh, Maddan Crevequer's boy, do you mean? Yes, I met Maddan Crevequer once or twice, and I used to hear a good deal about him. He was an eccentric--a genius, too, I think, only he didn't turn it in the right directions. Shut himself up in a little place in the North of Italy, and no one ever knew what he did there. Very striking. Then he came to England to send his boy to school, and it killed him. He required Italy for his existence, physically, intellectually, and spiritually. Quite a pagan, but his wife was a Roman Catholic, and I heard that the children were brought up to her faith, though she died quite young.... One feels always about his books that they should be intensely interesting, but it is an interest somehow run off the lines.... And so that is Maddan Crevequer's boy!' The thought suddenly brought her up. The flare of a street lamp had shown Tommy Crevequer rather plainly--his bare head, his frayed blazer, his friends, girls and men, who laughed. It was, perhaps, his friends who chiefly put the ring of surprise into Mrs. Venables' tone. Interest followed close on its heels. The thing struck her. 'Curious. We must find him out, Warren; get to know him.' 'Must we, mother? Good copy, do you think? But one knows the sort'--he made a downward movement with his hand--'when it's sober it borrows, and that's such a bore. Besides, we shan't be able to find him--and he won't, probably, want to be found.' 'You might go back now....' 'Interrupt the reading? No, I think not. He mightn't be pleased.' 'He looked,' said Mrs. Venables, 'as if he was entering into the life of the quite poor. That would be an enterprise of immense interest if one could really accomplish it, really break down the barriers. We must find the boy, Warren.' 'All right, we'll try. But I expect he's just scum, you know. There are lots like him in every big town; it drifts about the bottom, that sort, and personally I don't think it's anything in its favour that it's by way of being--or having been--a gentleman. But I've no doubt you'd like it, mother, so we'll look for Crevequer. Only its not an easy sort to find, I warn you. Nomadic, you know.... Oh, of course Crevequer may be just on the spree for to-night; he may dress better as a rule.' The impression of Mr. Crevequer seemed to remain with Mrs. Venables, standing out above the other dishes of her orgie. She returned to her hotel replete. Tommy Crevequer met his sister at the door of the Fondo Theatre, and walked home with her. He mentioned Venables. 'Head of my house in my first year at school. He was decent to me, rather. I don't suppose he knew me to-night; he had some one with him, so I didn't stop him; but I wouldn't mind meeting him again.' It was quite clear that he would not mind in the least. The Crevequers never minded meeting people; they were very sociable. Betty said that Morello had asked her to sit to him.