Edgar Wallace

“ Gregory Boyne, who was a florid edition of his sister, shook his head.
"Pelborough?" he said slowly. "I seem to remember the name. Yes. He's the shopwalker Marquis, isn't he? The fellow they were talking about the other day at the club?"
"He has no money," grunted Krenley, shuffling the cards. "Why do you ask, Lu?"
"Mansar wants me to invite him to our dance on Friday."
Boyne's lips curled.
"We don't want that kind of chap here," he said. "Why, the fellow's a hooligan! You'd be the laughing stock of London, Lu." ”

“ She nodded.
"You understand his position," she said. "I almost said social position," she smiled. "Chick is employed by an insurance agent, and he receives a salary of five pounds a week."
He nodded.
"And yet there isn't a man in this town," she went on quietly, "who is a kindlier gentleman than this boy."
"I liked him," said Lord Mansar, nodding.
"I don't know much about nobility," the girl went on, "but I feel that Chick has a responsibility to you and to your kind. ”

“ Mansar 's worth a million if he's worth a penny, and he's the kind of fellow who'd honour any cheque he signed—even if he was drunk when he signed it," he added significantly.
Chick had heard the news without enthusiasm.
"It will be wonderful for you, Chick," said Gwenda, her eyes shining. "You'll meet all your own kind of people."
They were at breakfast when she had received the letter from Lord Mansar enclosing Mrs. Krenley's invitation to Chick.
"I don't like parties very much," said Chick disconsolately, "but if you think I ought to go, Gwenda—why, there's nothing more to be said. ”

“ Besides——"
"Besides what?" asked Krenley huskily. His voice at this early hour of the morning was invariably husky.
"If I wrote and told Mansar I could not invite the boy, I hardly know what excuse I could make," she said. "It isn't like dinner, where every place is fixed. One more or less at a dance doesn't really matter."
"Write to him telling him point-blank that we don't want the bounder," said her brother carelessly, and he heard her laugh.
"Would Mansar come?" she asked significantly, and Boyne twisted in his chair to face her. ”

“ It was Boyne who spoke. "That's a pretty serious accusation to make, but I suppose that a guttersnipe——"
"Hold hard," said Mansar. "He wouldn't make that charge without some reason. What do you mean, Pelborough?"
"I don't know anything about this game," said Chick, "but I think you are under the impression that you played with one pack of cards. As a matter of fact, it has been played with fourteen, to my knowledge."
"What do you mean?"
"Every time it was your turn to be banker—that's the word, isn't it?" said Chick, "that fellow"—he pointed to Boyne—"changed the cards. ”

“ If he could have walked up the steps and presented a square of pasteboard to the footman, he would have felt more comfortable Half of his troubles ended when Lord Mansar descended from an electric brougham and, catching him by the arm, whisked him into the house. Before he knew what had happened. Chick found himself bowing stiffly to a beautiful lady and holding her jewelled hand.
"Glad to meet you. Lord Pelborough," she said sweetly. "I've heard so much about you." ”

“ It was a little after the time when she pressed the bell of a flat in Knightsbridge.
A man-servant opened the door and showed her into a big and smoky room, evidently a man's study, and an out-of-door man's at that, for the walls were covered with trophies of hunt and stalk. ”