ave you the card with you?"

"Rather," said Dick; "always take the card with me since I was kicked
out of a miner's hop at Broken Hill because I forgot it. 'No gentleman
will be admitted in a paper shirt' was mentioned on it, I remember. A
concertina, and candles in bottles. Ripping while it lasted. I wish you
had been there."

"I wish I had." Lord Newhaven's tired, half-closed eye opened a little.
"But the end seems to have been unfortunate."

"Not at all," said Dick, watching the new arrivals with his head thrown
back. "Fine girl that; I'll take a look at the whole mob of them
directly. They came round next day to say it had been a mistake, but
there were four or five cripples who found that out the night before.
Here is the card."

Lord Newhaven glanced at it attentively, and then laughed.

"It is four years old," he said; "I must have put you on my mother's
list, not knowing you had left London. It is in her writing."

"I'm rather late," said Dick, composedly; "but I am here at last. Now,
Cack--Newhaven, if that's your noble name--as I am here, trot out a few
heiresses, would you? I want to take one or two back with me. I say,
ought I to put my gloves on?"

"No, no. Clutch them in your great fist as you are doing now."

"Thanks. I suppose, old chap, I'm all right? Not had on an evening-coat
for four years."

Dick's trousers were too short for him, and he had tied his white tie
with a waist to it. Lord Newhaven had seen both details before he
recognized him.

"Quite right," he said, hastily. "Now, who is to be the happy woman?"

Dick's hawk eye promenaded over the crowd in the second room, in the
door-way of which he was standing.

"That one," he said; "the tall girl in the green gown talking to the
Bishop."

"You have a wonderful eye for heiresses. You have picked out the
greatest in London. That is Miss Rachel West. You say you want two."

"One at a time, thanks. I shall take her down to supper. I
suppose--er--there is supper at this sort of thing, isn't there?"

"Of a kind. You need not be afraid of the claret; it isn't yours."

"Catch you giving your best at a crush," retorted Dick. "The Bishop's
moving. Hurry up."

CHAPTER II

But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,
The King behind his shoulder spake: "Dead man, thou dost not well."
--RUDYARD KIPLING.

Hugh had gone through the first room, and, aft