As it was, I went back to London the very next day, determined to renew my slight acquaintance with Reggie Nettlecraft.

Fortunately, I had a good excuse for going to visit him.  I had been asked to collect among old Carthusians for one of those endless “testimonials” which pursue one through life, and are, perhaps, the worst Nemesis which follows the crime of having wasted one’s youth at a public school:  a testimonial for a retiring master, or professional cricketer, or washerwoman, or something; and in the course of my duties as collector it was quite natural that I should call upon all my fellow-victims.  So I went to his rooms in Staples Inn and reintroduced myself.

Reggie Nettlecraft had grown up into an unwholesome, spotty, indeterminate young man, with a speckled necktie, and cuffs of which he was inordinately proud, and which he insisted on “flashing” every second minute.  He was also evidently self-satisfied; which was odd, for I have seldom seen anyone who afforded less cause for rational satisfaction.  “Hullo,” he said, when I told him my name.  “So it’s you, is it, Cumberledge?” He glanced at my card.  “St. Nathaniel’s Hospital!  What rot!  Why, blow me tight if you haven’t turned sawbones!”

“That is my profession,” I answered, unashamed.  “And you?”

“Oh, I don’t have any luck, you know, old man.  They turned me out of Oxford because I had too much sense of humour for the authorities there—­beastly set of old fogeys!  Objected to my ‘chucking’ oyster shells at the tutors’ windows—­good old English custom, fast becoming obsolete.  Then I crammed for the Army.  But, bless your heart, a gentleman has no chance for the Army nowadays; a pack of blooming cads, with what they call ‘intellect,’ read up for the exams, and don’t give us a look-in; I call it sheer piffle.  Then the Guv’nor set me on electrical engineering—­electrical engineering’s played out.  I put no stock in it; besides, it’s such beastly fag; and then, you get your hands dirty.  So now I’m reading for the Bar; and if only my coach can put me up to tips enough to dodge the examiners, I expect to be called some time next summer.”

“And when you have failed for everything?” I inquired, just to test his sense of humour.

He swallowed it like a roach.  “Oh, when I’ve failed for everything, I shall stick up to the Guv’nor.  Hang it all, a gentleman can’t be expected to earn his own livelihood.  England’s going to the dogs, that’s where it is; no snug little sinecures left for chaps like you and me; all this beastly competition.  And no respect for the feelings of gentlemen, either!  Why, would you believe it, Cumberground—­we used to call you Cumberground at Charterhouse, I remember, or was it Fig Tree?—­I happened to get a bit lively in the Haymarket last week, after a rattling good supper, and the chap at the police court—­old cove with a squint—­positively proposed to send me to prison, without the Option of A fine!—­I’ll trouble you for that—­send me to prison just—­for knocking down a common brute of a bobby.  There’s no mistake about it; England’s not a country now for a gentleman to live in.”