ered. "Somehow--you may laugh
--somehow I have never been able to shake off the influence of your words,
Richard. Your cursed earnestness scared me."

"Scared you?" I cried, in astonishment.

"Just that," said Charles. "Jack will bear witness that I have said
so to Dolly a score of times. For I had never imagined such a single
character as yours. You know we were all of us rakes at fifteen,
to whom everything good in the universe was a joke. And do you recall
the teamster we met by the Park, and how he arrested his salute when he
saw who it was? At another time I should have laughed over that, but it
cut me to have it happen when you were along."

"And I'll lay an hundred guineas to a farthing the fellow would put his
head on the block for Charles now," cut in his Lordship, with his hand on
Mr. Fox's shoulder. "Behold, O Prophet," he cried, "one who is become
the champion of the People he reviled! Behold the friend of Rebellion
and 'Lese Majeste', the viper in Britannia's bosom!"

"Oh, have done, Jack," said Mr. Fox, impatiently, "you have no more music
in your soul than a cow. Damned little virtue attaches to it, Richard,"
he went on. "North threw me out, and the king would have nothing to do
with me, so I had to pick up with you rebels and traitors."

"You will not believe him, Richard," cried my Lord; "you have only to
look at him to see that he lies. Take note of the ragged uniform of the
rebel army he carries, and then think of him 'en petite maitre', with his
cabriolet and his chestnuts. Egad, he might be as rich as Rigby were it
not for those principles which he chooses to deride. And I have seen him
reduced to a crown for them. I tell you, Richard," said my Lord, "by
espousing your cause Charles is become greater than the King. For he
has the hearts of the English people, which George has not, and the
allegiance of you Americans, which George will never have. And if you
once heard him, in Parliament, you should hear him now, and see the
Speaker wagging his wig like a man bewitched, and hear friends and
enemies calling out for him to go on whenever he gives the sign of a
pause."

This speech of his Lordship's may seem cold in the writing, my dears,
and you who did not know him may wonder at it. It had its birth in an
admiration few men receive, and which in Charles Fox's devoted coterie
was dangerously near to idolatry. During the recital of it Charles
walked to the window, and there stood looking out upon