"Good-night, Mum!" He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously, sniffing the air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into covert.

Jolly good biz! After that mouldy old slow hole down there! He found his 'tutor,' not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but at the Goat's Club.

This 'tutor' was a year older than himself, a good-looking youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a small mouth, an oval face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree, one of those young men who without effort establish moral ascendancy over their companions.

He had missed being expelled from school a year before Val, had spent that year at Oxford, and Val could almost see a halo round his head.

His name was Crum, and no one could get through money quicker.