the
breaking-up of the card-table, intoxicated and almost penniless.
During the last half hour he had made himself very unpleasant at the
club, saying all manner of harsh things of Miles Grendall;--of whom,
indeed, it was almost impossible to say things too hard, had they been
said in a proper form and at a proper time. He declared that Grendall
would not pay his debts, that he had cheated when playing loo,--as to
which Sir Felix appealed to Dolly Longestaffe; and he ended by
asserting that Grendall ought to be turned out of the club. They had a
desperate row. Dolly of course had said that he knew nothing about it,
and Lord Grasslough had expressed an opinion that perhaps more than
one person ought to be turned out. At four o'clock the party was
broken up and Sir Felix wandered forth into the streets, with nothing
more than the change of a ten pound note in his pocket. All his
luggage was lying in the hall of the club, and there he left it.

There could hardly have been a more miserable wretch than Sir Felix
wandering about the streets of London that night. Though he was nearly
drunk, he was not drunk enough to forget the condition of his affairs.
There is an intoxication that makes merry in the midst of affliction,--
and there is an intoxication that banishes affliction by producing
oblivion. But again there is an intoxication which is conscious of
itself though it makes the feet unsteady, and the voice thick, and the
brain foolish; and which brings neither mirth nor oblivion. Sir Felix
trying to make his way to Welbeck Street and losing it at every turn,
feeling himself to be an object of ridicule to every wanderer, and of
dangerous suspicion to every policeman, got no good at all out of his
intoxication. What had he better do with himself? He fumbled in his
pocket, and managed to get hold of his ticket for New York. Should he
still make the journey? Then he thought of his luggage, and could not
remember where it was. At last, as he steadied himself against a
letter-post, he was able to call to mind that his portmanteaus were at
the club. By this time he had wandered into Marylebone Lane, but did
not in the least know where he was. But he made an attempt to get back
to his club, and stumbled half down Bond Street. Then a policeman
enquired into his purposes, and when he said that he lived in Welbeck
Street, walked back with him as far as Oxford Street. Having once
mentioned the place where he lived, he had not streng