rtune, has come back to lose
it here amongst us, as the only suitable reparation in his power for all
his past misconduct."

"With such excellent intentions, he could not have fallen into better
hands than yours, O'Kelly," said the Prince, laughing; "and I wish all
the fellows we have been subsidizing these ten years no worse than to be
your antagonists at piquet." Then, addressing me, he said, "An Irishman,
I presume?"

"Yes, your Royal Highness," said I, bowing deeply.

"He started as an something, or Mac somebody," said O'Kelly,
interrupting; "but having been Don'd in Spain, 'Strissemoed' in Italy,
and almost guillotined in France for calling himself Monsieur, he has
come back to us without any designation that he dares to call his own."

"That is exactly what happened to a very well known character in the
reign of Charles I.," said Conway, "who called himself by the title of
his last conquest in the fair sex, saying, 'When I take a reputation, I
accept all the reproach of the name.'"

"There was another authority," said Sheridan,--"a fellow who called
himself the King of the Beggars, who styled himself each day after the
man who gave him most, and died inheriting the name of Bamfield Moore
Carew."

"Carew will do admirably for my friend here, then," said O'Kelly, "and
we 'll call him so henceforth."

It may be imagined with what a strange rush of emotion I accepted this
designation, and laughingly joined in the caprice of the hour. I saw
enough to convince me that all around received O'Kelly's story as a mere
piece of jest, and that none had any suspicion of my real condition save
himself and his two friends. This conviction served to set me much at my
ease, and I went down to dinner with far less of constraint than might
have been supposed for one in my situation.

I will not disguise the fact that I thought for the first half-hour
that every eye was on me, that whatever I did or said was the subject
of general remark, and that my manner as I ate, and my tone as I spoke,
were all watched and scrutinized. Gradually, however, I grew to perceive
that I attracted no more notice than others about me, and that, to all
purposes, I was admitted to a perfect equality with the rest.

Conversation ranged freely over a wide field. Politics of every state of
Europe, the leading public characters and statesmen, their opinions and
habits, the modes of life abroad, literature and the drama, were all
discussed, if not al