Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/255

 my friend in London, to whom I telegraphed to find out about him. His name is really what he said it was, only he has not a right to the Honorable, and he is not the son of Lord Lucre. He is the son of a respectable London retail haberdasher, of the same name as Lord Lucre's family, Larkington, and, this boy being born a short time after the son of Lord Lucre, the mother thought it might bring him good luck to give him the same name as that of the Earl's son. His father is a man of respectable position, but the silly wife has had great notions of making a gentleman of her boy. She did not want him to measure his betters for their socks, and so raked and scraped together enough money to keep him idle and floating about Europe, as a gentleman of leisure. His groom was his father's apprentice, and his great friend. Lately there had been some row between the father and son, and the two young men started off for America."

Gray Grosvenor had joined the group