“Neat, aren’t they?” said he with a senile grin, showing Mr. Roscorla the tips of a pair of pink satin slippers.

“Yes,” said Mr. Roscorla:  “I suppose they’re for your daughter.”

They went up to the card-room.

“I expect you’ll teach us a lesson, Roscorla,” said the old general.  “Gad! some of you West Indian fellows know the difference between a ten and an ace.”

“Last time I played cards,” Roscorla said modestly, “I was lucky enough to win forty-eight pounds,”

“Whew!  We can’t afford that sort of thing on this side of the water—­not if you happen to serve Her Majesty, any way.  Come, let’s cut for partners.”

There was but little talking, of course, during the card-playing:  at the end of it Mr. Roscorla found he had only lost half a sovereign.  Then everybody adjourned to a snug little smoking-room, to which only members were admitted.  This, to the neophyte, was the pleasantest part of the evening.  He seemed to hear of everything that was going on in London, and a good deal more besides.  He was behind the scenes of all the commercial, social and political performances which were causing the vulgar crowd to gape.  He discovered the true history of the hostility shown by So-and-so to the premier; he was told the little scandal which caused Her Majesty to refuse to knight a certain gentleman who had claims on the government; he heard what the duke really did offer to the gamekeeper whose eye he had shot out, and the language used by the keeper on the occasion; and he received such information about the financial affairs of many a company as made him wonder whether the final collapse of the commercial world were at hand.  He forgot that he had heard quite similar stories twenty years before.  Then they had been told by ingenuous youths full of the importance of the information they had just acquired:  now they were told by garrulous old gentlemen, with a cynical laugh which was more amusing than the hot-headed asseveration of the juniors.  It was, on the whole, a delightful evening, this first evening of his return to club-life; and then it was so convenient to go up stairs to bed instead of having to walk from the inn of Eglosilyan to Basset Cottage.

Just before leaving, the old general took Roscorla aside, and said to him, “Monstrous amusing fellows, eh?”

“Very.”

“Just a word.  Don’t you let old Lewis lug you into any of his companies:  you understand?”

“There’s not much fear of that,” Mr. Roscorla said with a laugh.  “I haven’t a brass farthing to invest.”

“All you West Indians say that:  however, so much the better.  And there’s old Stratford, too:  he’s got some infernal India rubber patent.  Gad, sir! he knows no more about those commercial fellows than the man in the moon; and they’ll ruin him—­mark my words, they’ll ruin him.”

Roscorla was quite pleased to be advised.  It made him feel young and ingenuous.  After all, the disparity in years between him and his late companions was most obvious.