Spicer?'
'Sir, they seemed good to _me_, very good. Just at the moment of the first
frost!'
A CAPITALIST
Among the men whom I saw occasionally at the little club in Mortimer
Street,--and nowhere else,--was one who drew my attention before I had
learnt his name or knew anything about him. Of middle age, in the fullness
of health and vigour, but slenderly built; his face rather shrewd than
intellectual, interesting rather than pleasing; always dressed as the
season's mode dictated, but without dandyism; assuredly he belonged to the
money-spending, and probably to the money-getting, world. At first sight of
him I remember resenting his cap-a-pie perfection; it struck me as bad
form--here in Mortimer Street, among fellows of the pen and the palette.
'Oh,' said Harvey Munden, 'he's afraid of being taken for one of us. He
buys pictures. Not a bad sort, I believe, if it weren't for his
snobbishness.'
'His name?'
'Ireton. Has a house in Fitzjohn Avenue, and a high-trotting wife.'
Six months later I recalled this description of Mrs. Ireton. She was the
talk of the town, the heroine of the newest divorce case. By that time I
had got to know her husband; perhaps once a fortnight we chatted at the
club, and I found him an agreeable acquaintance.
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