es of
prosperity, their friends who had faded with the first waning of fortune.
Some of them had known what it was to be fawned over. And how many of
these careless, flitting men of fashion I looked upon could feel the
ground firm beneath their feet; or could say with certainty what a change
of ministers, or one wild night at White's or Almack's, would bring
forth? Verily, one must have seen the under side of life to know the
upper!

Presently I was sought out by Mr. Topham Beauclerk, who had heard of the
episode below and wished to hear more. He swore at the duke.

"He will be run through some day, and serve him jolly right," said he.
"Bet you twenty pounds Charles Fox does it! His Grace knows he has the
courage to fight him."

"The courage!" I repeated.

"Yes. Angelo says the duke has diabolical skill. And then he won't
fight fair. He killed young Atwater on a foul, you know. Slipped on
the wet grass, and Chartersea had him pinned before he caught his guard.
But there is Lady Di a-calling, a-calling."

"Do all the women cheat in America too?" asked Topham, as we approached.

I thought of my Aunt Caroline, and laughed.

"Some," I answered.

"They will game, d--n 'em," said Topham, as tho' he had never gamed in
his life. "And they will cheat, till a man has to close his eyes to
keep from seeing their pretty hands. And they will cry, egad, oh so
touchingly, if the luck goes against them in spite of it all. Only last
week I had to forgive Mrs Farnham an hundred guineas. She said she'd
lost her pin-money twice over, and was like to have wept her eyes out."

Thus primed in Topham's frank terms, I knew what to expect. And I found
to my amusement he had not overrun the truth. I lost like a stoic, saw
nothing, and discovered the straight road to popularity.

"The dear things expect us to make it up at the clubs," whispered he.

I discovered how he had fallen in love with his wife, Lady Diana, and
pitied poor Bolingbroke heartily for having lost her. She was then in
her prime,--a beauty, a wit, and a great lady, with a dash of the
humanities about her that brought both men and women to her feet.

"You must come to see me, Mr. Carvel," said she. "I wish to talk to you
of Dorothy."

"Your Ladyship believes me versed in no other subject?" I asked.

"None other worth the mention," she replied instantly; "Topham tells me
you can talk horses, and that mystery of mysteries, American politics.
But look at Miss Manners