e--his horse, as he called Templemore--and meeting Lord
Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one
of the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar. The
bet was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right
hand down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a
decision in Algernon's favour. Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot,
and Algernon pocketed it exulting. He had the idea that it was the first
start in his making head against the flood. The next instant he could
have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed. For, a soul of chicken
and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to
Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have
become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back. He went
on saying, as he rushed forward alone: "Never mind, Suckling. Oh, hang
it! put it in your pocket;" and the imperative necessity for talking,
and fancying what was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time
as if he had really acted according to the prompting of his wisdom. It
amazed him to see people sitting and listening. The more he tried it,
the more unendurable it became. Those sitters and loungers appeared like
absurd petrifactions to him. If he abstained from activity for ever so
short a term, he was tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said
to himself, a man who has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and
drunk thereto Champagne all day, until the popping of the corks has
become as familiar as minute-guns, he can hardly be empty. It
was peculiar. He stood, just for the sake of investigating the
circumstance--it was so extraordinary. The music rose in a triumphant
swell. And now he was sure that he was not to be blamed for thinking
this form of entertainment detestable. How could people pretend to
like it? "Upon my honour!" he said aloud. The hypocritical nonsense of
pretending to like opera-music disgusted him.

"Where is it, Algy?" a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a
languid laugh.

"Where's what?"

"Your honour."

"My honour? Do you doubt my honour?" Algernon stared defiantly at the
inoffensive little fellow.

"Not in the slightest. Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
book."

"Latters? Ah, yes," said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it. "Fifty, or a
hundred, is it? I lost