Charles and Comyn hither with a purpose.
For me he would have put himself out not an inch had he not understood
that my support came from those quarters.

He tempered off this exhibition by showing us a collection of pottery
famous in England, that had belonged to the fifth duke, his father.
Every piece of it, by the way, afterwards brought an enormous sum at
auction. Supper was served in a warm little room of oak. The game was
from Derresley Manor, the duke's Nottinghamshire seat, and the wine, so
he told us, was some of fifty bottles of rare Chinon he had inherited.
Melted rubies it was indeed, of the sort which had quickened the blood of
many a royal gathering at Blois and Amboise and Chenonceaux,--the
distilled peasant song of the Loire valley. In it many a careworn clown
had tasted the purer happiness of the lowly. Our restraint gave way
under its influence. His Grace lost for the moment his deformities, and
Mr. Fox made us laugh until our sides ached again. His Lordship told
many a capital yarn, and my own wit was afterwards said to be
astonishing, though I can recall none of it to support the affirmation.

Not a word or even a hint of Dorothy had been uttered, nor did Chartersea
so much as refer to his Covent Garden experience. At length, when some
half dozen of the wine was gone, and the big oak clock had struck two,
the talk lapsed. It was Charles Fox, of course, who threw the spark into
the powder box.

"We were speaking of hunting, Chartersea," he said. "Did you ever know
George Wrottlesey, of the Suffolk branch?"

"No," said his Grace, very innocent.

"No! 'Od's whips and spurs, I'll be sworn I never saw a man to beat him
for reckless riding. He would take five bars any time, egad, and sit any
colt that was ever foaled. The Wrottleseys were poor as weavers then,
with the Jews coming down in the wagon from London and hanging round the
hall gates. But the old squire had plenty of good hunters in the
stables, and haunches on the board, and a cellar that was like the
widow's cruse of oil, or barrel of meal--or whatever she had. All the
old man had to do to lose a guinea was to lay it on a card. He never
nicked in his life, so they say. Well, young George got after a rich
tea-merchant's daughter who had come into the country near by. 'Slife!
she was a saucy jade, and devilish pretty. Such a face! so Stavordale
vowed, and such a neck! and such eyes! so innocent, so ravishingly
innocent. But she knew cursed we