edless ingrate, for whom they risked and lost all, was
tippling with his seraglio of mistresses in his petite maison of
Chaillot.

Blushing to be forced to bear such an errand, Esmond had to go to the
Prince and warn him that the girl whom his Highness was bribing was John
Lockwood's sweetheart, an honest resolute man, who had served in six
campaigns, and feared nothing, and who knew that the person calling
himself Lord Castlewood was not his young master: and the Colonel
besought the Prince to consider what the effect of a single man's
jealousy might be, and to think of other designs he had in hand, more
important than the seduction of a waiting-maid, and the humiliation of a
brave man.

Ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr. Esmond had to
warn the royal young adventurer of some imprudence or some freedom. He
received these remonstrances very testily, save perhaps in this affair
of poor Lockwood's, when he deigned to burst out a-laughing, and said,
"What! the soubrette has peached to the amoureux, and Crispin is angry,
and Crispin has served, and Crispin has been a corporal, has he? Tell
him we will reward his valor with a pair of colors, and recompense his
fidelity."

Colonel Esmond ventured to utter some other words of entreaty, but the
Prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, "Assez, milord: je m'ennuye
a la preche; I am not come to London to go to the sermon." And he
complained afterwards to Castlewood, that "le petit jaune, le noir
Colonel, le Marquis Misanthrope" (by which facetious names his Royal
Highness was pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), "fatigued him with
his grand airs and virtuous homilies."

The Bishop of Rochester, and other gentlemen engaged in the transaction
which had brought the Prince over, waited upon his Royal Highness,
constantly asking for my Lord Castlewood on their arrival at Kensington,
and being openly conducted to his Royal Highness in that character, who
received them either in my lady's drawing-room below, or above in his
own apartment; and all implored him to quit the house as little as
possible, and to wait there till the signal should be given for him to
appear. The ladies entertained him at cards, over which amusement he
spent many hours in each day and night. He passed many hours more in
drinking, during which time he would rattle and talk very agreeably, and
especially if the Colonel was absent, whose presence always seemed to
frighten him; and the poor "