old his
head up: he never did in his best days." And Strong, perhaps, repented
him of the falsehood which he had told to the free-handed Colonel,
that he was not in want of money; but it was a falsehood on the side of
honesty, and the Chevalier could not bring down his stomach to borrow
a second time from his outlawed friend. Besides, he could get on.
Clavering had promised him some: not that Clavering's promises were much
to be believed, but the Chevalier was of a hopeful turn, and trusted in
many chances of catching his patron, and waylaying some of those stray
remittances and supplies, in the procuring of which for his principal
lay Mr. Strong's chief business.

He had grumbled about Altamont's companionship in the Shepherd's Inn
chambers; but he found those lodgings more glum now without his partner
than with him. The solitary life was not agreeable to his social soul;
and he had got into extravagant and luxurious habits, too, having a
servant at his command to run his errands, to arrange his toilets, and
to cook his meal. It was rather a grand and touching sight now to see
the portly and handsome gentleman painting his own boots, and broiling
his own mutton chop. It has been before stated that the Chevalier had
a wife, a Spanish lady of Vittoria, who had gone back to her friends,
after a few months' union with the Captain, whose head she broke with
a dish. He began to think whether he should not go back and see his
Juanita. The Chevalier was growing melancholy after the departure of his
friend the Colonel; or, to use his own picturesque expression, was "down
on his luck." These moments of depression and intervals of ill fortune
occur constantly in the lives of heroes; Marius at Minturme, Charles
Edward in the Highlands, Napoleon before Elba. What great man has not
been called upon to face evil fortune?

From Clavering no supplies were to be had for some time, the
five-and-twenty pounds or the "pony," which the exemplary Baronet had
received from Mr. Altamont, had fled out of Clavering's keeping as
swiftly as many previous ponies. He had been down the river with a
choice party of sporting gents, who dodged the police and landed in
Essex, where they put up Billy Bluck to fight Dick the cabman whom the
Baronet backed, and who had it all his own way for thirteen rounds,
when, by an unlucky blow in the windpipe, Billy killed him. "It's always
my luck, Strong," Sir Francis said; "the betting was three to one on the
cab