he was due to shoot pheasants with
a distinguished party in Norfolk, but this business which he had now
in hand was of so much importance that even the pheasant-shooting and
the distinguished party were not of much moment to him.

He went to Penrith, and thence direct to London. It was the habit of
his life to give up his London lodgings when he left town at the end
of the season, and spare himself the expense of any home as long as
he could find friends to entertain him. There are certain items of
the cost of living for which the greatest proficient in the art of
tick must pay, or he will come to a speedy end;--and a man's lodging
is one of them. If indeed the spendthrift adapts himself to the
splendour of housekeeping, he may, provided his knowledge of his
business be complete, and his courage adequate, house himself
gloriously for a year or two with very small payment in ready money.
He may even buy a mansion with an incredibly small outlay, and, when
once in it, will not easily allow himself to be extruded. George
Hotspur, however, not from any want of knowledge or of audacity, but
from the nature of the life he chose to lead, had abstained from such
investment of his credit, and had paid for his lodgings in St. James'
Street. He was consequently houseless at the moment, and on his
arrival in London took himself to an hotel close behind the military
club to which he belonged.

At this moment he was comparatively a rich man. He had between three
and four hundred pounds at a bank at which he kept an account when
possessed of funds. But demands upon him were very pressing, and
there was a certain Captain Stubber who was bitter against him,
almost to blood, because one Mr. Abraham Hart had received two
thousand pounds from the proceeds of Sir Harry's generosity. Captain
Stubber had not received a shilling, and had already threatened
Cousin George with absolute exposure if something were not done to
satisfy him.

George, when he had ordered his dinner at his club, wrote the
following letter to Lady Altringham. He had intended to write from
Penrith in the morning, but when there had been out of sorts and
unhappy, and had disliked to confess, after his note of triumph
sounded on the previous evening, that he had been turned out of
Humblethwaite. He had got over that feeling during the day, with
the help of sundry glasses of sherry and a little mixed curacoa and
brandy which he took immediately on his arrival in London,