s. Waddy had a woeful visage when informing me that he was out, gone to
Courtenay Square. She ventured a murmur of bills coming in. Like
everybody else, she fancied he drew his supplies from my inexhaustible
purse; she hoped the bills would be paid off immediately: the servants'
wages were overdue. 'Never can I get him to attend to small accounts,'
she whimpered, and was so ready to cry outright, that I said, 'Tusk,' and
with the one word gave her comfort. 'Of course, you, Mr. Harry, can
settle them, I know that.' We were drawing near to poor old Sewis's
legacy, even for the settling of the small accounts!

London is a narrow place to one not caring to be seen. I could not remain
in this creditor-riddled house; I shunned the Parks, the Clubs, and the
broad, brighter streets of the West. Musing on the refreshing change it
would be to me to find myself suddenly on board Captain Jasper Welsh's
barque Priscilla, borne away to strange climes and tongues, the world
before me, I put on the striding pace which does not invite interruption,
and no one but Edbury would have taken the liberty. I heard his shout.
'Halloa! Richmond.' He was driving his friend Witlington in his
cabriolet. 'Richmond, my hearty, where the deuce have you been? I wanted
you to dine with me the other night.'

I replied, looking at him steadily, that I wished I had been there.

'Compendious larks!' cried he, in the slang of his dog's day. 'I say;
you're one at Duke Fitz's masquerade to-night? Tell us your toggery. Hang
it, you might go for the Black Prince. I'm Prince Hal. Got a headache?
Come to my Club and try my mixture. Yoicks! it'd make Methuselah and
Melchisedec jump up and have a twirl and a fandango. I say, you're thick
with that little French actress Chastedian jolly little woman! too much
to say for herself to suit me.'

He described the style of woman that delighted him--an ideal English
shepherdess of the print-shops, it appeared, and of extremely remote
interest to me, I thought at the time. Eventually I appointed to walk
round to his Club, and he touched his horse gently, and bobbed his
diminutive henchman behind his smart cabriolet, the admiration of the
street.

I found him waiting for me on the steps of his Club, puffing a cigar with
all his vigour, in the classic attitude of a trumpeter. My first words
were: 'I think I have to accuse you of insulting me.'

'Insulting you, Richmond!' he cried, much surprised, holding his cigar in
tra