s the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was careful to put more
froth than wine into the glasses of the kids), the boys filed out of the
Hall. The Duffer, Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's
room. Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution. Warde was the
right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And he meant to stick by him
through thick and thin. John said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out--

"Warde didn't surprise me--much. I've found out that he's one of the
Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real old stuff. Our families intermarried
in Elizabeth's reign."

"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer. "Warde's daughter
is an uncommonly pretty girl."

Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."

"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a pleasure to remember
that we're of kin. One must be civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."

"You think too much of family," said Desmond.

"_One can't_," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One knows that family
is not everything, but, other things being equal, it means refinement.
The first of the Howards was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of
education, of association with the best, have turned them from
swine-herds into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."

"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.

"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual, "My governor's,
you know."

"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.

"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."

Desmond went out, wondering what had become of Scaife. Scaife was in his
room, talking to Lovell senior, who spent a fortnight with Scaife's
people in Scotland, fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also,
but his father, rather to Caesar's disgust (for the Scaife moor was
famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife were arguing
about something which Desmond could not understand.

"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool went no trumps
holding two missing suits. The enemy doubled, my partner redoubled, and
the others redoubled again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow
on the left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little Slam,
and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It gave 'em the rubber,
too, and I had to fork out a couple of quid."

"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.

"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the rage. Do you play
bridge, Caesar?"

"No. I