"He is an honest man." "I should like to question a regiment of his landladies," said Rupert cynically.
"I must say, I think you can hardly regard him as unimpeachable merely in himself," I said mildly; "his mode of life--" Before I could complete the sentence the door was flung open and Drummond Keith appeared again on the threshold, his white Panama on his head.
"I say, Grant," he said, knocking off his cigarette ash against the door, "I've got no money in the world till next April.

Could you lend me a hundred pounds?
There's a good chap." Rupert and I looked at each other in an ironical silence.

Basil, who was sitting by his desk, swung the chair round idly on its screw and picked up a quill-pen.
"Shall I cross it ?" he asked, opening a cheque-book.
"Really," began Rupert, with a rather nervous loudness, "since Lieutenant Keith has seen fit to make this suggestion to Basil before his family, I--" "Here you are, Ugly," said Basil, fluttering a cheque in the direction of the quite nonchalant officer.

"Are you in a hurry ?" "Yes," replied Keith, in a rather abrupt way.

"As a matter of fact I want it now.