uit should he wear?
The Hibernian suggested black velvet. 'Could you recommend a tailor?'
'Certainly.' Snip came, an expensive suit was ordered, put on, and the
dinner taken. In due course the tailor called for his money. The duke
was not a bit at a loss, though he had but a few francs to his name.
'Honest man,' quoth he, 'you mistake the matter entirely. Carry the bill
to Sir Peter; for know that whenever I consent to wear another man's
livery, my master pays for the clothes,' and inasmuch as the
dinner-giver was an Irishman, he did actually discharge the account.

At other times he would give a sumptuous entertainment, and in one way
or another induce his guests to pay for it. He was only less adroit in
coining excuses than Theodore Hook, and had he lived a century later, we
might have a volume full of anecdotes to give of his ways and no means.
Meanwhile his unfortunate duchess was living on the charity of friends,
while her lord and master, when he could get anyone to pay for a band,
was serenading young ladies. Yet he was jealous enough of his wife at
times, and once sent a challenge to a Scotch nobleman, simply because
some silly friend asked him if he had forbidden his wife to dance with
the lord. He went all the way to Flanders to meet his opponent; but,
perhaps fortunately for the duke, Marshal Berwick arrested the
Scotchman, and the duel never came off.

Whether he felt his end approaching, or whether he was sick of vile
pleasures which he had recklessly pursued from the age of fifteen, he
now, though only thirty years of age, retired for a time to a convent,
and was looked on as a penitent and devotee. Penury, doubtless, cured
him in a measure, and poverty, the porter of the gates of heaven, warned
him to look forward beyond a life he had so shamefully misused. But it
was only a temporary repentance; and when he left the religious house,
he again rushed furiously into every kind of dissipation.

At length, utterly reduced to the last extremities, he bethought himself
of his colonelcy in Spain, and determined to set out to join his
regiment. The following letter from a friend who accompanied him will
best show what circumstances he was in:--

'Paris, June 1, 1729.

'Dear Sir,--I am just returned from the Gates of Death, to return you
Thanks for your last kind Letter of Accusations, which I am persuaded
was intended as a seasonable Help to my Recollection, at