He might get news of HER from Val. The condition of
England, that nightmare of its Press and Public men, was seen in
different perspective within the tobacconist's which they now entered.

"Yes, sir; precisely the cigarette I used to supply your father with.
Bless me! Mr. Montague Dartie was a customer here from--let me see--the
year Melton won the Derby. One of my very best customers he was." And a
faint smile illumined the tobacconist's face. "Many's the tip he's
given me, to be sure! I suppose he took a couple of hundred of these
every week, year in, year out, and never changed his cigarette. Very
affable gentleman, brought me a lot of custom. I was sorry he met with
that accident. One misses an old customer like him."

Val smiled. His father's decease had closed an account which had been
running longer, probably, than any other; and in a ring of smoke puffed
out from that time-honoured cigarette he seemed to see again his
father's face, dark, good-looking, moustachioed, a little puffy, in the
only halo it had earned. His father had his fame here, anyway--a man
who smoked two hundred cigarettes a week, who could give tips, and run
accounts for ever! To his tobacconist a hero! Even that was some
distinction to inherit!

"I pay cash," he said; "how much?"

"To HIS son, sir, and cash--ten and six. I shall never forget Mr.
Montague Dartie. I've known him stand talkin' to me half an hour. We
don't get many like him now, with everybody in such a hurry. The war
was bad for manners, sir--it was bad for manners. You were in it, I
see."

"No," said Val, tapping his knee, "I got this in the war before. Saved
my life, I expect. Do you want any cigarettes, Jon?"

Rather ashamed, Jon murmured: "I don't smoke, you know," and saw the
tobacconist's lips twisted, as if uncertain whether to say "Good God!"
or "Now's your chance, sir!"

"That's right," said Val; "keep off it while you can. You'll want it
when you take a knock. This is really the same tobacco, then?"

"Identical, sir; a little dearer, that's all. Wonderful staying
power--the British Empire, I always say."

"Send me down a hundred a week to this address, and invoice it monthly.
Come on, Jon."

Jon entered the Iseeum with curiosity. Except to lunch now and then at
the Hotch-potch with his father, he had never been in a London Club.
The Iseeum, comfortable and unpretentious, did not move, could not, so
long as George Forsyte sat on its Committee, where his culin