ally less satisfactory than losing, which, at all events, had the merit
of adding to the bulk of his accusation against the ruling Powers unseen.

Algernon was too savage for betting when the great race was run. He
refused both at taunts and cajoleries; but Lord Suckling coming by, said
"Name your horse," and, caught unawares, Algernon named Little John, one
of the ruck, at a hazard. Lord Suckling gave him fair odds, asking: "In
tens?--fifties?"

"Silver," shrugged Algernon, implacable toward Fortune; and the kindly
young nobleman nodded, and made allowance for his ill-temper and want of
spirit, knowing the stake he had laid on the favourite.

Little John startled the field by coming in first at a canter.

"Men have committed suicide for less than this" said Algernon within his
lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his
countenance. He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue. His
whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that
devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper. Food and a
frothing drink were all that he asked from Fortune. It seemed to him that
the concourse on the downs shifted in a restless way.

"What's doing, I wonder?" he thought aloud.

"Why, sir, the last race ain't generally fashionable," said his cabman,
appearing from behind his shoulder. "Don't you happen to be peckish,
sir?--'cause, luck or no luck, that's my case. I couldn't see, your
purse, nowheres."

"Confound you! how you hang about me! What do you want?" Algernon cried;
and answered his own question, by speeding the cabman to a booth with
what money remained to him, and appointing a place of meeting for the
return. After which he glanced round furtively to make sure that he was
not in view of the man who had lent him the sovereign. It became evident
that the Downs were flowing back to London.

He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion. The
ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.
Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw,
waste paper--the ruins of the feast: Fate's irony meantime besetting him
with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming
charity in such places.

At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had
lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus
Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by prepo