y," says Mr. Dare, taking his cigar
from between his lips to give more emphasis to his words. "We at
Cambridge were too frivolous for such superior beings as Dicky. It was
at Oxford he commenced his honorable career; it was there he indulged in
those high hopes of future fame that have been so splendidly realized in
his maturer years."

"Don't kick me when I'm down," says Dicky, pathetically. "I couldn't
help it--and at least I have _had_ my hopes. That must be always
something. It's any amount soothing, do you know, to look back upon your
past, and remember what a jolly ass you once were."

"I can't imagine your ever having had hopes of future fame," says Dulce,
laughing.

"Well I had, do you know, any amount of 'em. In the early dawn, when I
was awake--which, perhaps, wasn't so often as it sounds, except when I
was returning from--er--a friend's house. I used to sit up with them,
you know, whenever they had scarla"--

"Oh yes, _we_ know," interrupts Roger, most unfeelingly.

"Well, in the early dawn," continues Dicky, quite unmoved, "when the
little birds were singing, I used to think I could be happy as General
Sir Richard Browne, at the head of a gallant corps, with a few darkies
in the foreground fleeing before my trusty blade. By breakfast time,
however, all that would be changed, and I would glory in the belief that
one day would see me seated on the wool-sack. By dinnertime I was
clothed in sanctimonious lawn; and long before the small hours, I felt
myself a second Drake, starting to conquer another Armada, only one even
_more_ Invincible."

They all laugh at him. And then he laughs at himself, and seems, indeed,
to enjoy the joke even more than they do.

"I don't care," he says, at length, valiantly; "no, not a single screw.
I haven't _done_ anything, you know."

"Oh yes, you have, a lot in your time," murmurs Roger, supportingly.

"But I must come in for the title and the estate when the old boy, my
cousin, 'shuffles off this mortal coil,' and in the meantime the
governor stands to me decently enough, and I'm pretty jolly all round."

"Tell us about Stephen Gower," says Dulce, after a pause, "He interests
me, I don't know why. What is he like?"

"He is

'A greenery yallery
Grosvenor gallery
Foot-in-the-grave young man.'"

quotes Dicky, gaily.

"An aesthetic! Oh! I _do_ hope not," exclaims Dulce, in a horrified tone.

"Have they pursued me even down here?" a