He did not worry about it much. The main question had not to do with money. The main question was simply this, shall I be Victor Jones for the future, or shall I be the Earl of Rochester? The twenty-first Earl of Rochester? Shall I clear out, or stick to my guns? Remain boss of this show and try and make something of the wreckage, or sneak off with nothing to show for the most amazing experience man ever underwent? Rochester had sneaked off. He was a quitter. Jones had once read a story in the Popular Magazine, in which a Railway Manager had cast scorn on a ne'er-do-well. "God does surely hate a quitter," said the manager. These words always remained with him. They had crystallised his sentiments in this respect: the quitter ranked in his mind almost with the sharper. All the same the temptation to quit was strong, even though the temptation to stay was growing. A loophole remained open to him. It was not necessary to decide at once; he could throw down his cards at any moment and rise from the table if the game was getting too much for him, or if he grew tired of it. He saw difficult times ahead for him in the mess in which Rochester had left his affairs--that was, perhaps, his strongest incentive to remain. He was roused from his reverie by voices in the hall. Loud cheery voices. A knock came to the door and a servant announced: "Sir Hugh Spicer and Captain Stark to see you, my Lord." Jones sat up in his chair. "Show them in," said he. The servant went out and returned ushering in a short bibulous looking young man in evening dress covered with a long fawn coloured overcoat; this gentleman was followed by a half bald, evil looking man of fifty or so, also in evening attire. This latter wore a monocle in what Jones afterwards mentally called, "his twisted face." "Look at him!" cried the young man, "sitting in his blessed arm chair and not dressed. Look at him!" He lurched slightly as he spoke, and brought up at the table where he hit the inkstand with the cane he was carrying, sending inkpot and pens flying. Jones looked at him. This was Hughie. Pillar of the Criterion bar, President of the Rag Tag Club, baronet and detrimental--and all at twenty three. "Leave it alone, Hughie," said Stark, going to the silver cigar box and helping himself. "Less of that blessed cane, Hughie--why, Jollops, what ails you?" He stared at Jones as he lit a cigar. Jones looked at him. This was Spencer Stark, late Captain in His Majesty's Black Hussars, gambler, penniless, always well dressed, and always well fed--Terrible. Just as beetles are beetles, whether dressed in tropical splendour or the funereal black of the English type, so are detrimentals detrimentals. Jones knew his men. "I beg your pardon," said he, "did you mean that name for me?"