near four generations of Carthews were touched upon without
eliciting one point of interest; and we had killed Mr. Henry in "the
'unting-field," with a vast elaboration of painful circumstance, and
buried him in the midst of a whole sorrowing county, before I could so
much as manage to bring upon the stage my intimate friend, Mr. Norris.
At the name the ex-butler grew diplomatic, and the ex-lady's-maid
tender. He was the only person of the whole featureless series who
seemed to have accomplished anything worth mention; and his
achievements, poor dog, seemed to have been confined to going to the
devil and leaving some regrets. He had been the image of the Right
Honourable Bailley, one of the lights of that dim house, and a career
of distinction had been predicted of him in consequence, almost from the
cradle. But before he was out of long clothes the cloven foot began to
show; he proved to be no Carthew, developed a taste for low pleasures
and bad company, went birdnesting with a stable-boy before he was
eleven, and when he was near twenty, and might have been expected to
display at least some rudiments of the family gravity, rambled the
country over with a knapsack, making sketches and keeping company in
wayside inns. He had no pride about him, I was told; he would sit down
with any man; and it was somewhat woundingly implied that I was indebted
to this peculiarity for my own acquaintance with the hero. Unhappily,
Mr. Norris was not only eccentric, he was fast. His debts were still
remembered at the University; still more, it appeared, the highly
humorous circumstances attending his expulsion. "He was always fond of
his jest," commented Mrs. Higgs.

"That he were," observed her lord.

But it was after he went into the diplomatic service that the real
trouble began.

"It seems, sir, that he went the pace extraordinary," said the
ex-butler, with a solemn gusto.

"His debts were somethink awful," said the lady's-maid. "And as nice a
young gentleman all the time as you would wish to see!"

"When word came to Mr. Carthew's ears the turn-up was 'orrible,"
continued Mr. Higgs. "I remember it as if it was yesterday. The bell was
rung after her la'ship was gone, which I answered it myself, supposing
it were the coffee. There was Mr. Carthew on his feet. ''Iggs,' he says,
pointing with his stick, for he had a turn of the gout, 'order the
dog-cart instantly for this son of mine which has disgraced hisself.'
Mr. Norris say n