A Fair Fraud — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Fair Fraud IT thorpe he seemed to fill the whole house with life and noise. He whistled or sang snatches of music-hall ballads about the house; his sturdy footstep echoed along the passages ; the pleasant whiff of his cigars penetrated the uttermost corners of the corridors, and even found its way up into Marion’s little sanctum, into which, needless to say, the gallant captain himself had never set foot. Then he brought other men with him; some came to shoot, some to hunt; there were parties got up for his amusement ; his horses and dogs filled the stables and yards, and beautiful ladies were invited to flirt with him and his friends in the evenings. } The whole house seemed to wake up into life and activity when the only son came home. Yet it was not so very often that he was down at Crookthorpe, for he was such a popular young man that he was always being invited to stay at other people’s houses. July took him to Cowes—August usually found him in Scot- land—in September he would be in Norfolk. Only in the winter months, should the weather be mild, could he be safely reckoned upon at Crookthorpe, for Kenneth Drury loved nothing so much in the world as hunting, and his father’s house was situated in a first-rate centre for sport, three packs of hounds being within easy reach of the lodge gates. The pheasant shoot- ing, indeed, brought him down for a flying visit GOMMGIOO 4 (G' O)