Explore "Lieutenant Bones" by Edgar Wallace on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There were four generations of Seccondis, each one richer than the last. They moved in the best English circles, but they did not stay permanently in any. Two of the generations were exceedingly presentable persons, were Bachelors of Art and of Science, and a great deal besides. They endowed cottage hospitals and made generous contributions to charities. They had boxes at the opera, owned and ran race-horses, were to be seen at Cowes and at Ascot -- though never in the royal enclosure -- and one at least appeared in the Divorce Court.
Even to the fourth generation there was on the finger nail of every Seccondi a liver-coloured half moon just where nail and cuticle meet, and this was probably one of the explanations of Society's reluctance to clasp the Seccondis to its bosom; and though there was a Baron Seccondi of the Holy Roman Empire -- Julius of that clan secured the distinction -- not even the most careless of Society writers really believed that Seccondi was an ancient Italian title.