h survives very often a long course
of personal debasement, and he felt that Conway was a man of honor.
Such men he very well knew were usually duped and done,--they were the
victims of the sharp set he himself fraternized with; but, with all
that, there was something about them that he still clung to, just as he
might have clung to a reminiscence of his boy-days.

"I take it," said he, at last, "that each of us have caught it
as heavily as most fellows going. _You_, to be sure, worse than
myself,--for I was only a younger son."

"_My_ misfortunes," said Conway, "were all of my own making. I
squandered a very good fortune in a few years, without ever so much
as suspecting I was in any difficulty; and, after all, the worst
recollection of the past is, how few kindnesses, how very few
good-natured things a fellow does when he leads a life of mere
extravagance. I have enriched many a money-lender, I have started half
a dozen rascally servants into smart hotel-keepers, but I can scarcely
recall five cases of assistance given to personal friends. The truth is,
the most selfish fellow in the world is the spendthrift."

"That 's something new to me, I must own," said Beecher, thoughtfully;
but Conway paid no attention to the remark. "My notion is this," said
Beecher, after a pause,--"do what you will, say what you will, the world
won't play fair with you!"

Conway shook his head dissentingly, but made no reply, and another and a
longer silence ensued.

"You don't know my brother Lackington?" said Beecher, at length.

"No. I have met him in the world and at clubs, but don't know him."

"I 'll engage, however, you 've always heard him called a clever fellow,
a regular sharp fellow, and all that, just because he's the Viscount;
but he is, without exception, the greatest flat going,--never saw his
way to a good thing yet, and if you told him of one, was sure to spoil
it. I 'm going over to see him now," added he, after a pause.

"He 's at Rome, I think, the newspapers say?"

"Yes, he's stopping there for the winter." Another pause followed, and
Beecher threw away the end of his cigar, and, sticking an unlighted one
in his mouth, walked the deck in deep deliberation. "I 'd like to put a
case to you for your opinion," said he, as though screwing himself to a
great effort. "If you stood next to a good fortune,--next in reversion,
I mean,--and that there was a threat--just a threat, and no more--of a
suit to contest your rig