CHAPTER XIII
Some three weeks after this Ginger was occupying the whole of the most comfortable sofa in the rooms of his father occupied by Bertie, and was conversing to him in his usual amiable manner. The rooms wore the look of those belonging to a man shortly to take a journey; there were packets and parcels lying about, a bag gaped open-mouthed on a chair, and Bertie himself was sorting and tearing up papers at a desk, listening with half an ear to the equable flow of Ginger's conversation. He had a good deal to say, and a good deal to ask about, but, with the instinct of the skilled conversationalist, he did not bring out his news in spate, nor ask a succession of questions, but ambled easily, so to speak, up and down the lanes and byways of intercourse, only occasionally emerging on to the highroads.
' It may appear odd,' he was just saying, ' but I never was in these rooms before. Gallio has never asked me here. I am glad to see that he appears to make himself fairly comfortable. I suppose he is at Monte Carlo still. Heard from him, Bertie?'
' Yes, a letter of extreme approbation at my marriage, and a regret that he will be unable to visit America for it. Also a cheque for £500 as a wedding-present. Out of his hardly lost losings, he says.'
' Gallio's in funds now, or was till he went to Monte Carlo,' remarked Ginger. ' He got two hundred thousand for the
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