e
carte and do the needful? You may trust him, gentlemen,' continued he,
turning towards us with a smile; 'old Crotty has a most unexceptionable
taste in all that regards _cuisine_ and _cave_; save a slight leaning
towards expense, he has not a fault!'

I mumbled out something of an apology, which was unfortunately supposed
by the baronet to have reference to his last remark. I endeavoured
to explain away the mistake, and ended like a regular awkward man by
complying with a request I had previously resolved to decline. The young
man had already given his consent, and so we arose and walked through
the rooms, while Crotty inspected the bill of fare and gave orders about
the wine.

Wycherley seemed to know and be known by every one, and as he
interchanged greetings with the groups that passed, declined several
pressing invitations to sup. 'The fact is,' said he to one of his most
anxious inviters, 'the fact is'--and the words were uttered in a whisper
I could just hear--'there's a poor young fellow here who has been
getting it rather sharp at the gold table, and I mustn't lose sight of
him to-night, or he'll inevitably go back there.'

These few words dispelled any uneasiness I had already laboured under
from finding myself so unexpectedly linked with two strangers. It was
quite clear that Sir Harry was a fine-hearted fellow, and that his
manly, frank countenance was no counterfeit. As we went along, Wycherley
amused us with his anecdotes of the company, with whose private history
he was conversant in its most minute details; and truly, low as had been
my estimate of the society at first, it fell considerably lower as I
listened to the private memoirs with which he favoured us.

Some were the common narratives of debt and desertion, protested bills,
and so forth; others were the bit-by-bit details of extravagant habits
pushed beyond all limits, and ending in expatriation for ever. There
were faithless husbands, outraging all decency by proclaiming their
bad conduct; there were as faithless wives, parading about in all the
effrontery of wickedness. At one side sat the roue companion of George
the Fourth, in his princely days, now a mere bloated debauchee, with
rouged cheeks and dyed whiskers, living on the hackneyed anecdotes
of his youthful rascality, and earning his daily bread by an affected
epicurism and a Sybarite pretension, which nattered the vulgar vanity
of those who fed him; while the lion of the evening was