“To his son, sir, and cash—­ten and six.  I shall never forget Mr. Montague Dartie.  I’ve known him stand talkin’ to me half an hour.  We don’t get many like him now, with everybody in such a hurry.  The War was bad for manners, sir—­it was bad for manners.  You were in it, I see.”

“No,” said Val, tapping his knee, “I got this in the war before.  Saved my life, I expect.  Do you want any cigarettes, Jon?”

Rather ashamed, Jon murmured, “I don’t smoke, you know,” and saw the tobacconist’s lips twisted, as if uncertain whether to say “Good God!” or “Now’s your chance, sir!”

“That’s right,” said Val; “keep off it while you can.  You’ll want it when you take a knock.  This is really the same tobacco, then?”

“Identical, sir; a little dearer, that’s all.  Wonderful staying power—­the British Empire, I always say.”

“Send me down a hundred a week to this address, and invoice it monthly.  Come on, Jon.”

Jon entered the Iseeum with curiosity.  Except to lunch now and then at the Hotch-Potch with his father, he had never been in a London Club.  The Iseeum, comfortable and unpretentious, did not move, could not, so long as George Forsyte sat on its Committee, where his culinary acumen was almost the controlling force.  The Club had made a stand against the newly rich, and it had taken all George Forsyte’s prestige, and praise of him as a “good sportsman,” to bring in Prosper Profond.

The two were lunching together when the half-brothers-in-law entered the dining-room, and attracted by George’s forefinger, sat down at their table, Val with his shrewd eyes and charming smile, Jon with solemn lips and an attractive shyness in his glance.  There was an air of privilege around that corner table, as though past masters were eating there.  Jon was fascinated by the hypnotic atmosphere.  The waiter, lean in the chaps, pervaded with such free-masonical deference.  He seemed to hang on George Forsyte’s lips, to watch the gloat in his eye with a kind of sympathy, to follow the movements of the heavy club-marked silver fondly.  His liveried arm and confidential voice alarmed Jon, they came so secretly over his shoulder.

Except for George’s “Your grandfather tipped me once; he was a deuced good judge of a cigar!” neither he nor the other past master took any notice of him, and he was grateful for this.  The talk was all about the breeding, points, and prices of horses, and he listened to it vaguely at first, wondering how it was possible to retain so much knowledge in a head.  He could not take his eyes off the dark past master—­what he said was so deliberate and discouraging—­such heavy, queer, smiled-out words.  Jon was thinking of butterflies, when he heard him say: 

“I want to see Mr. Soames Forsyde take an interest in ’orses.”

“Old Soames!  He’s too dry a file!”

With all his might Jon tried not to grow red, while the dark past master went on.