But Neergard broke his word to him.
And one morning, before he left his rooms at Mrs.Greeve's lodgings to go downtown, Percy Draymore called him up on the telephone; and as that overfed young man's usual rising hour was notoriously nearer noon than eight o'clock, it surprised Selwyn to be asked to remain in his rooms for a little while until Draymore and one or two friends could call on him personally concerning a matter of importance.
He therefore breakfasted leisurely; and he was still scanning the real estate columns of a morning paper when Mrs.Greeve came panting to his door and ushered in a file of rather sleepy but important looking gentlemen, evidently unaccustomed to being abroad so early, and bored to death with their experience.
They were men he knew only formally, or, at best, merely as fellow club members; men whom he met when a dance or dinner took him out of the less pretentious sets he personally affected; men whom the newspapers and the public knew too well to speak of as "well known." First there was Percy Draymore, overgroomed for a gentleman, fat, good-humoured, and fashionable--one of the famous Draymore family noted solely for their money and their tight grip on it; then came Sanxon Orchil, the famous banker and promoter, small, urbane, dark, with that rich almost oriental coloring which he may have inherited from his Cordova ancestors who found it necessary to dehumanise their names when Rome offered them the choice with immediate eternity as alternative.
Then came a fox-faced young man, Phoenix Mottly, elegant arbiter of all pertaining to polo and the hunt--slim-legged, hatchet-faced--and more presentable in the saddle than out of it.

He was followed by Bradley Harmon, with his washed-out colouring of a consumptive Swede and his corn-coloured beard; and, looming in the rear like an amiable brontasaurus, George Fane, whose swaying neck carried his head as a camel carries his, nodding as he walks.
"Well!" said Selwyn, perplexed but cordial as he exchanged amenities with each gentleman who entered, "this is a killing combination of pleasure and mortification--because I haven't any more breakfast to offer you unless you'll wait until I ring for the Sultana--" "Breakfast! Oh, damn! I've breakfasted on a pill and a glass of vichy for ten years," protested Draymore, "and the others either have swallowed their cocktails, or won't do it until luncheon.

I say, Selwyn, you must think this a devilishly unusual proceeding." "Pleasantly unusual, Draymore.

Is this a delegation to tend me the nomination for the down-and-out club, perhaps ?" Fane spoke up languidly: "It rather looks as though we were the down-and-out delegation at present; doesn't it, Orchil ?" "I don't know," said Orchil; "it seems a trifle more promising to me since I've had the pleasure of seeing Captain Selwyn face to face.

Go on, Percy; let the horrid facts be known." "Well--er--oh, hang it all!" blurted out Draymore, "we heard last night how that fellow--how Neergard has been tampering with our farmers--what underhand tricks he has been playing us; and I frankly admit to you that we're a worried lot of near-sports.