! You--you fellows are
hiding the door! You are--you are all jealous! Oh, yes! Such a shape and
such eyes! You are jealous, hang you!'

Mr. Pomeroy leaned forward and leered at the tutor. 'Shall we let him
go?' he whispered. 'It will mend somebody's chance. What say you,
Parson? You stand next. Make it six thousand instead of five, and I'll
see to it.'

'Let me go to her!' my lord hiccoughed. He was standing, holding by the
back of a chair. 'I tell you--I--where is she? You are jealous! That's
what you are! Jealous! She is fond of me--pretty charmer--and I shall
go to her!'

But Mr. Thomasson shook his head; not so much because he shrank from the
outrage which the other contemplated with a grin, as because he now
wished Lord Almeric to succeed. He thought it possible and even likely
that the girl, dazzled by his title, would be willing to take the young
sprig of nobility. And the influence of the Doyley family was great.

He shook his head therefore, and Mr. Pomeroy rebuffed, solaced himself
with a couple of glasses of punch. After that, Mr. Thomasson pleaded
fatigue as his reason for declining to take a hand at any game whatever,
and my lord continuing to maunder and flourish and stagger, the host
reluctantly suggested bed; and going to the door bawled for Jarvey and
his lordship's man. They came, but were found to be incapable of
standing when apart. The tutor and Mr. Pomeroy, therefore, took my lord
by the arms and partly shoved and partly supported him to his room.

There was a second bed in the chamber. 'You had better tumble in there,
Parson,' said Mr. Pomeroy. 'What say you? Will't do?'

'Finely,' Tommy answered. 'I am obliged to you.' And when they had
jointly loosened his lordship's cravat, and removed his wig and set the
cool jug of small beer within his reach, Mr. Pomeroy bade the other a
curt good-night, and took himself off.

Mr. Thomasson waited until his footsteps ceased to echo in the gallery,
and then, he scarcely knew why, he furtively opened the door and peeped
out. All was dark; and save for the regular tick of the pendulum on the
stairs, the house was still. Mr. Thomasson, wondering which way Julia's
room lay, stood listening until a stair creaked; and then, retiring
precipitately, locked his door. Lord Almeric, in the gloom of the green
moreen curtains that draped his huge four-poster, had fallen into a
drunken slumber. The shadow of his wig, which Pomeroy had clapped on the
wig-stand by th