He wondered whether Horne Fisher was both an orphan and an
only child.
It was, therefore, with something like a start that he found that
Fisher had a brother, much more prosperous and powerful than
himself, though hardly, March thought, so entertaining. Sir Henry
Harland Fisher, with half the alphabet after his name, was something
at the Foreign Office far more tremendous than the Foreign
Secretary. Apparently, it ran in the family, after all; for it
seemed there was another brother, Ashton Fisher, in India, rather
more tremendous than the Viceroy. Sir Henry Fisher was a heavier,
but handsomer edition of his brother, with a brow equally bald, but
much more smooth. He was very courteous, but a shade patronizing,
not only to March, but even, as March fancied, to Horne Fisher as
well. The latter gentleman, who had many intuitions about the
half-formed thoughts of others, glanced at the topic himself as they
came away from the great house in Berkeley Square.
"Why, don't you know," he observed quietly, "that I am the fool of
the family?"
"It must be a clever family," said Harold March, with a smile.
"Very gracefully expressed," replied Fisher; "that is the best of
having a literary training. Well, perhaps it is an exaggeration to
say I am the fool of the family.
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