champagne corks were flying at his expense for the benefit of
a circle of admiring friends, of "a short life and a merry one." So he
stopped in London till the very close of the season, "keeping the game
alive," as he expressed it, to the last, and then started for the
Continent. An attempt to recruit his finances at Baden-Baden
terminated, as might be expected, in their further reduction, and at
last he found his way to Paris. Unfortunately for him, his ruinous
career in England had been so short, and his self-conceit, and great
opinion of his own knowingness, had made him so utterly reject the
advice and experience of the very few friends who cared a rush for his
welfare, that he was still in the state of a six-day-old puppy, and as
unable to take care of himself. More than half-ruined, he preserved
his illusions; still believed in the sincerity of fashionable
acquaintances, in the fidelity of histrionic mistresses, in the
disinterestedness of mankind in general, or at least of that portion
of it with which he habitually associated. The bird had left half its
feathers with the fowler, but was as willing as ever to run again
into the snare. And at Paris snares were plentiful, well-baited and
carefully covered up.

"I can scarcely define the society into which I got at Paris," said
Oakley, when he came to this part of his history. "It was of a motley
sort, gathered from all quarters, and, upon the whole, rather pleasant
than respectable. It consisted partly of persons I had known in
England, either Englishmen or dashing young Frenchmen of fortune,
whose acquaintance I had made during their visits to London a few
months previously. I had also several letters of introduction, some of
which gave me entrance into the best Parisian circles, but these I
generally neglected, preferring the gay fellows for whom I bore
commendatory scrawls from my London associates. But probably my best
recommendation was my pocket, still tolerably garnished, and the
recklessness with which I scattered my cash. I felt myself on the high
road to ruin, but my down-hill course had given such impetus to my
crazy vehicle, that I despaired of checking it, and shut my eyes to
the inevitable smash awaiting me at the bottom.

"It was not long in coming. Although educated in France, and
consequently speaking the language as a native, I always took more
kindly to my own countrymen than to Frenchmen, and gradually I
detached myself unconsciously from thos