ck into the bed, I covered my face with
my hands, overcome with shame and misery. All the mists that had blurred
my faculties had now been swept clean away, and the whole history of
the previous evening was revealed before me. My stupid folly, my absurd
boastfulness, my egregious story-telling,--not to call it worse,--were
all there; but, shall I acknowledge it? what pained me not less
poignantly was the fact that I ventured to stake the horse I had merely
hired, and actually lost him at the play-table.

As soon as I rallied from this state of self-accusation, I set to work
to think how I should manage to repossess myself of my beast, my loss of
which might be converted into a felony. To follow the priest and ransom
Blondel was my first care. Father Dyke would most probably not exact
an unreasonable price; he, of course, never believed one word of my
nonsensical narrative about Schamyl and the Caucasus, and he 'd not
revenge upon Potts sober the follies of Potts tipsy. It is true my purse
was a very slender one, but Blondel, to any one unacquainted with
his pedigree, could not be a costly animal; fifteen pounds--twenty,
certainly--ought to buy what the priest would call "every hair on his
tail."

It was now too late in the evening to proceed to execute the measures I
had resolved on, and so I determined to lie still and ponder over them.
Dismissing the waiter, with an order to bring me a cup of tea about
eight o'clock, I resumed my cogitations. They were not pleasant ones:
Potts a byword for the most outrageous and incoherent balderdash and
untruth; Potts in the "Hue and Cry;" Potts in the dock; Potts in the
pillory; Potts paragraphed in "Punch;" portrait of Potts, price one
penny!--these were only a few of the forms in which the descendant of
the famous Corsican family of Pozzo di Borgo now presented himself to my
imagination.

The courts and quadrangles of Old Trinity ringing with laughter, the
coarse exaggerations of tasteless scoffers, the jokes and sneers of
stupidity, malice, and all uncharitableness, rang in my ears as if I
heard them. All possible and impossible versions of the incident
passed in review before me: my father, driven distracted by impertinent
inquiries, cutting me off with a shilling, and then dying of
mortification and chagrin; rewards offered for my apprehension;
descriptions, not in any way flatteries, of my personal appearance;
paragraphs of local papers hinting that the notorious Potts was