home.
“It is very absurd, of course,” continued Aunt Agatha. “If any of the family had inherited poor Henry’s eccentricity—and it was nothing more—it would have been Claude and Eustace, and there could not be two brighter boys.”
Claude and Eustace were twins, and had been kids at school with me in my last summer term. Casting my mind back, it seemed to me that “bright” just about described them. The whole of that term, as I remembered it, had been spent in getting them out of a series of frightful rows.
“Look how well they are doing at Oxford. Your Aunt Emily had a letter from Claude only the other day saying that they hoped to be elected shortly to a very important college club, called The Seekers.”
“Seekers?” I couldn’t recall any club of the name in my time at Oxford. “What do they seek?”
“Claude did not say. Truth or knowledge, I should imagine. It is evidently a very desirable club to belong to, for Claude added that Lord Rainsby, the Earl of Datchet’s son, was one of his fellow-candidates. However, we are wandering from the point, which is that Sir Roderick wants to have a quiet talk with you quite alone. Now I rely on you, Bertie, to be—I won’t say intelligent, but at least sensible. Don’t giggle nervously: try to keep that horrible glassy expression out of your eyes: don’t yawn or fidget; and remember that Sir Roderick is the president of the West