t on the road. His silence at his clubs was remarked:
smoking, billiards, military duties, and this and that, roused him a
little, and presently Jack was alive again. But then came the season,
Lady Clara Pulleyn's first season in London, and Jack was more alive
than ever. There was no ball he did not go to; no opera (that is to say,
no opera of certain operas) which he did not frequent. It was easy to
see by his face, two minutes after entering a room, whether the person
he sought was there or absent; not difficult for those who were in the
secret to watch in another pair of eyes the bright kindling signals
which answered Jack's fiery glances. Ah! how beautiful he looked on his
charger on the birthday, all in a blaze of scarlet, and bullion, and
steel. O Jack! tear her out of yon carriage, from the side of yonder
livid, feathered, painted, bony dowager! place her behind you on the
black charger; cut down the policeman, and away with you! The carriage
rolls in through St. James's Park; Jack sits alone with his sword
dropped to the ground, or only atra cura on the crupper behind him; and
Snip, the tailor, in the crowd, thinks it is for fear of him Jack's head
droops. Lady Clara Pulleyn is presented by her mother, the Countess of
Dorking; and Jack is arrested that night as he is going out of White's
to meet her at the Opera.

Jack's little exploits are known in the Insolvent Court, where he made
his appearances as Charles Belsize, commonly called the Honourable
Charles Belsize, whose dealings were smartly chronicled by the indignant
moralists of the press of those days. The Scourge flogged him heartily.
The Whip (of which the accomplished editor was himself in Whitecross
Street prison) was especially virtuous regarding him; and the Penny
Voice of Freedom gave him an awful dressing. I am not here to scourge
sinners; I am true to my party; it is the other side this humble pen
attacks; let us keep to the virtuous and respectable, for as for poor
sinners they get the whipping-post every day. One person was faithful
to poor Jack through all his blunders and follies and extravagance and
misfortunes, and that was the pretty young girl of Chanticlere, round
whose young affections his luxuriant whiskers had curled. And the world
may cry out at Lord Kew for sending his brougham to the Queen's Bench
prison, and giving a great feast at Grignon's to Jack on the day of his
liberation, but I for one will not quarrel with his lordship. He