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'As I am to tear myself away from you, Mr. Snape, it is better that I should hand over these valuable documents to your safe keeping. There they are, Mr. Snape; pray see that you have got them all; and so saying, he left the room to attend to the high behests of Mr. Oldeschole. As he went along the passages he met Verax Corkscrew returning from his interview.
It is a hard thing to be the younger son of an ancient but impoverished family. The fact that your brother Thomas is taking most of the dibs restricts your inheritance to a paltry two thousand a year, while pride of blood forbids you to supplement this by following any of the common professions. Impossible for a St Verax to be a doctor, a policeman or an architect.
He must find some nobler means of existence. For three years Roger St Verax had lived precariously by betting. To be a St Verax was always to be a sportsman. Roger's father had created a record in the sporting world by winning the Derby and the Waterloo Cup with the same animal though, in each case, it narrowly escaped disqualification.
Roger himself almost created another record by making betting pay. His book, showing how to do it, was actually in the press when disaster overtook him. On the next race he dropped a cool five hundred, and later on in the afternoon a cool seventy- five pounds ten. When a younger son is cleaned out there is only one thing for him to do. Roger St Verax knew instinctively what it was.
But there must be something more in it than this, or why are Bango-Bangos still going up? I don't know. And I am sorry to say that even Roger St Verax, a Director of the Bango-Bango Development Company, is not very clear about it all. It was as a Director of the Bango-Bango Exploration Company that he took up his life in the City.
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