Clarence Tresillian

Clarence Tresillian, a true Runnymede, is too well-bred to comment when his mother announces the family is ruined and his father mourns a lost veto. Faced with the prospect of earning a living on twelve thousand pounds a year, he can think of nothing he is qualified to do except play football, and he proposes to sign on as a professional under the name Jones. His languid practicality and his mother's fierce determination to make him hustle drive the story's early comedy.