travagant and riotous living!

His income _only_ was limited, his credit was _un_limited.
When his money fell short, he ran into debt; and at the end of the first
term his liabilities were alarming, or would have been so to a more
sensitive mind.

It is true, the amount was much greater than his inexperience had led him
to expect; but he only smiled grimly when he had all his bills before
him, and had estimated the sum total, and he said to himself:

"If my allowance will not support me here like a gentleman, my father
must make up the deficiency, that is all!"

The Duke of Hereward was indeed confounded when his ward wrote to him and
told him boldly that he wanted fifteen hundred pounds for immediate
necessities--namely, twelve hundred for the liquidation of debts, and
three hundred for traveling expenses.

But could he scold the poor, disinherited boy, who, kept to himself at
Oxford, had doubtless fallen among thieves and been mercilessly fleeced.

No; he would pay these debts out of his own pocket, and write the young
man a kind letter of warning against the university sharks.

The duke carried out this resolution, and John Scott, freed from debt,
and with three hundred pounds in his possession, went on a holiday tour
through the country.

He had heard at Oxford of the rising glories of Lone, and determined to
take his holiday in that neighborhood.

It happened that the Duke and Duchess of Hereward, with the Marquis of
Arondelle, and their attendants, went that summer to Baden-Baden; so when
the Oxonion arrived at the "Hereward Arms," in the hamlet of Lone, and,
from his age and his exact likeness to the family, was mistaken for the
heir, there was no one to set the people right on the subject.

The obsequious host of the Hereward Arms called him "my lord," and
inquired after his gracious parents, the duke and the duchess.

John Scott did not actually deceive the people as to his identity, but he
tacitly allowed them to deceive themselves. He did not tell them that he
was the Marquis of Arondelle; neither did he contradict them when they
called him so. Nor did his conscience reproach him for his silent
duplicity. He said to himself:

"I _am_ the rightful Marquis of Arondelle. They do but give me my
own just title! If this comes to the ears of the duke and brings on a
crisis, I will tell him so!"

While he was in the neighborhood, he went up to Ben Lone on a fishing
excursion, and there, as elsewhere, o