Once upon a time this George Carboys occupied a fair position in the world, and his parents--long since dead--were well to do.

The son, being an only child, was well looked after--sent to Eton and then to Brasenose, and all that sort of thing--and the future looked very bright for him.

Before he was twenty-one, however, his father lost everything through unlucky speculations, and that forced the son to make his own living.

At the 'Varsity he had fallen in with a rich young Belgian--fellow named Maurice Van Nant--who had a taste for sculpture and the fine arts generally, and they had become the warmest and closest of friends." "Maurice Van Nant?
That's the sculptor fellow you said in the beginning had gone through his money, isn't it ?" "Yes.

Well, when young Carboys was thrown on the world, so to speak, this Van Nant came to the rescue, made a place for him as private secretary and companion, and for three or four years they knocked round the world together, going to Egypt, Persia, India, _et cetera_, as Van Nant was mad on the subject of Oriental art, and wished to study it at the fountain-head.