“There’s nothing for it but bracing up!  We must cut away all this State support; we must teach them to rely on themselves.  It’s all sheer pauperisation.”

And suddenly there shot through me the fear that he might burst one of those little blue veins in his pale forehead, so vehement had he become; and hastily I changed the subject.

“Do you like living up there with your aunt?” I asked:  “Isn’t it a bit quiet?”

He turned, as if I had awakened him from a dream.

“Oh, well!” he said, “it’s only till I get this job.”

“Let me see—­how long is it since you——?”

“Four years.  She’s very glad to have me, of course.”

“And how’s your brother Claud?”

“Oh!  All right, thanks; a bit worried with the estate.  The poor old gov’nor left it in rather a mess, you know.”

“Ah!  Yes.  Does he do other work?”

“Oh!  Always busy in the parish.”

“And your brother Richard?”

“He’s all right.  Came home this year.  Got just enough to live on, with his pension—­hasn’t saved a rap, of course.”

“And Willie?  Is he still delicate?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Easy job, his, you know.  And even if his health does give out, his college pals will always find him some sort of sinecure.  So jolly popular, old Willie!”

“And Alan?  I haven’t heard anything of him since his Peruvian thing came to grief.  He married, didn’t he?”

“Rather!  One of the Burleys.  Nice girl—­heiress; lot of property in Hampshire.  He looks after it for her now.”

“Doesn’t do anything else, I suppose?”

“Keeps up his antiquarianism.”

I had exhausted the members of his family.

Then, as though by eliciting the good fortunes of his brothers I had cast some slur upon himself, he said suddenly:  “If the railway had come, as it ought to have, while I was out there, I should have done quite well with my fruit farm.”

“Of course,” I agreed; “it was bad luck.  But after all, you’re sure to get a job soon, and—­so long as you can live up there with your aunt—­you can afford to wait, and not bother.”

“Yes,” he murmured.  And I got up.

“Well, it’s been very jolly to hear about you all!”

He followed me out.

“Awfully glad, old man,” he said, “to have seen you, and had this talk.  I was feeling rather low.  Waiting to know whether I get that job—­it’s not lively.”

He came down the Club steps with me.  By the door of my cab a loafer was standing; a tall tatterdemalion with a pale, bearded face.  My distant relative fended him away, and leaning through the window, murmured:  “Awful lot of these chaps about now!”

For the life of me I could not help looking at him very straight.  But no flicker of apprehension crossed his face.

“Well, good-by again!” he said:  “You’ve cheered me up a lot!”