As they stood talking, there came slowly sauntering along the pave a well-built young fellow, broad of shoulder and chest, and fining rapidly down to the loins. He seemed to convey the idea that he was rolling up to you on the deck of a ship with a sea on, and he carried his hands as if it might be necessary at any moment to throw them out to seize belaying pin or handrail. He was well dressed; but there was a certain easy freedom in the fit of his garments, and a loose swing pervading all, much in contrast with the natty, fashionable attire of the friends, whom he saluted with a pleasant smile lighting up his bronzed face and clear grey eyes. His hair was crisp, curly, and brown, seeming rather at war with the glossy new hat he wore, and settled more than once upon his head as he listened to the remarks of the little dapper-looking man at his side--Podger, otherwise Frank, Pratt, of the Temple. Pratt was a solemn, neutral-looking fellow; but none the less he was keen and peculiar, even though, to use his own words, he had been born without any looks at all. "There's the wolf, Dick," said Pratt, as they approached the club. "Who's that with him? Ah, might have known--the lamb." "You seem to have kept up the old school tricks, Frank," said Trevor, "and I suppose it gets you into hot water sometimes. Bad habit giving nicknames. We shouldn't stand it at sea." "It breaks no bones," said the other, quietly, "and seems to do me good--safety-valve for my spleen. How odd it is, though, that we four should be thrown together again in this way!" "I was thinking the same; but I don't see why we should call things odd when we have shaped them ourselves. I was cruising about for days to find you all out." "Well, it's very kind of you, Dick," said Pratt. "And let me see--I've won four pounds ten and six of you during the last week at pool and whist. Dick, you're quite a godsend to a poor fellow. Look here, new gloves--ain't had such a pair for a month." "By the way," said Trevor, "is Vanleigh well off?" "He was," said Pratt--"came in for a nice property. How he stands now I can't say." "And Landells?" "Landells has a clear nine thousand a year; but I've seen hardly anything of them lately. Poole dresses them; and how could you expect such exquisites to seek the society of a man who wears sixteen-shilling pantaloons, dines on chops, reads hard, and, when he does go to a theatre, sits in the pit? By Jove, Dick, you would have laughed one night! I did--inside, for there wasn't a crease in my phiz. They cut me dead. I was sitting in the front row in the pit, and as luck or some mischievous imp would have it, they were placed in two stalls in the back row, exactly in front of me, so that I could inhale the ambrosial odours from Flick Landells' fair curls the whole evening." "Snobbish--wasn't it?" said Dick.