As we Forgive Them by William le Queux

In order to put the plain, unvarnished truth before you, I must, in the first place, explain that I, Gilbert Greenwood, was a man of small means, having been left an annuity by an ascetic Baptist, but somewhat prosperous aunt, while Reginald Seton I had known ever since we had been lads together at Charterhouse. The son of George Seton, a lace warehouseman of Cannon Street and Alderman of the City of London, Reggie had been left at twenty-five with a heavy burden of debt and an old-fashioned, high-class but rapidly declining business. Still, brought up to the lace trade in a factory at Nottingham, Reggie boldly followed in his father's footsteps, and by dint of close attention to business succeeding in rubbing along sufficiently well to avoid the bankruptcy court, and to secure an income of a few hundreds a year.

Both of us were still bachelors, and we chummed in comfortable chambers in a newly-constructed block of flats in Great Russell Street, while, being also fond of fox-hunting, the only sport we could afford, we also rented a cheap, old-fashioned house in a rural village called Helpstone, eighty miles from London, in the Fitzwilliam country. Here we spent each winter, usually being "out" two days a week.