Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/172

 "Different from ole 'Earty's 'Good-evenin', Joseph,'" he would remark. "I'd like 'Earty to meet this little lot."

One Sunday evening, about nine o'clock, Bindle made his way round to the flat, and found Dick Little alone with his brother Tom, who was spending the week-end in town. Bindle had not previously met Tom Little, who, however, greeted him warmly as an old friend.

"P'r'aps I'd better be goin'," suggested Bindle tentatively, "seein' as you're"

"Not a bit of it," broke in Dick Little; "sit down, mix yourself a drink; there are the cigars."

Bindle did as he was bid.

"We were talking about Gravy when you came in," remarked Tom Little.

"An' very nice too, with a cut from the joint an' two vegs.," remarked Bindle pleasantly.

Dick Little explained that "Gravy" was the nickname by which Mr. Reginald Graves was known to his fellow-undergraduates. "We're about fed up with him at Joe's," Tom Little added.

"An' 'oo might Joe be, sir, when 'e's at 'ome, an' properly labelled?" enquired Bindle.

"It's St. Joseph's College, Oxford, where my 'brother is," explained Dick Little.

In the course of the next half-hour Bindle learned a great deal about Mr. Reginald Graves, who had reached Oxford by means of scholarship, and considered that he had suffered loss of