“You might have let me have it separately,” he remarked.  “Tea and brandy don’t blend well.  I shall sleep like a hog after this.  Besides, I shouldn’t have had rheumatic fever.  It’s not my way.  Anything in the paper to-night?”

“Yes,” said Sir Beverley disgustedly.  “There’s that prize-fight business.”

“What’s that?” Piers looked up with quick interest.

“Surely you saw it!” returned Sir Beverley.  “That fellow Adderley—­killed his man in a wrestling-match.  A good many people said it was done by a foul.”

“Adderley!” repeated Piers.  “I know him.  He gave me some quite useful tips once.  What happened?  It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Well, he’s a murderer,” said Sir Beverley.  “And he deserves to be hanged.  He killed his man,—­whether by a foul or not I can’t say; but anyway he meant to kill him.  It’s obvious on the face of it.  But they chose to bring it in manslaughter, and he’s only got five years; while some brainless fool must needs write an article a column and a half long to protest against the disgraceful practice of permitting wrestling or boxing matches, which are a survival of the Dark Ages and a perpetual menace to our civilization!  A survival of your grandmother!  A nice set of nincompoops the race will develop into if such fools as that get their way!  We’re soft enough as it is, Heaven knows.  Why couldn’t they hang the scoundrel as he deserved?  That’s the surest way of putting an end to savagery.  But to stop the sport altogether!  It would be tomfoolery!”

Piers picked up the paper from the floor and smoothed it out.  He proceeded to study it with drawn brows, and Sir Beverley sat and watched him with that in his stone-grey eyes which no one was ever allowed to see.

“Eat your crumpets, boy!” he said at last.

“What?” Piers glanced up momentarily.  “Oh, all right, sir, in a minute.  This is rather an interesting case, what?  You see, Adderley was a friend of mine.”

“When did you meet him?” demanded Sir Beverley.

“I knew him in my school-days.  He spent a whole term in the neighbourhood.  It was just before I left for my year of travel.  I got to know him rather well.  He gave me several hints on wrestling.”

“Did he teach you how to break your opponent’s neck?” asked Sir Beverley drily.

Piers made a slight, scarcely perceptible movement of one hand.  It clenched upon the paper he held.  “They were—­worth knowing,” he said, with his eyes upon the sheet.  “But I should have thought he was too old a hand himself to get into trouble.”

Sir Beverley grunted.  Piers read on.  At the end of a lengthy pause he laid the paper aside.  “I’m beastly rude,” he remarked.  “Have a crumpet!”

“Eat ’em yourself!” said Sir Beverley.  “I hate ’em!”

Piers picked up the plate and began to eat.  He stared at the blaze as he did so, obviously lost in thought.

“Don’t dream!” said Sir Beverley sharply.