's
ancient retainer went on his many errands, and neither the General nor his
man saw anything out of the way in the proceeding. Even CLARA looked, I
thought, with some favour--but as CLARA always breaks into indignant
denials whenever this is hinted, I will proceed no further. As for the
members of the Dansington Club they were enthusiastic in COBBYN'S praises.
The young sparks imitated his fashions in ties and collars, the old bucks
repeated to one another his stories, and one and all vowed he was "an
uncommon good fellow, by Gad."

To me COBBYN was always profusely polite, with that flattering politeness
which induces the flattered to think himself just a shade cleverer and
sharper and better than his fellow-creatures, and on the day before my
departure he honoured me by borrowing a ten-pound note of me and writing my
London address with much ceremony on the back of an envelope, which I
afterwards found lying about in a passage of the General's house.

Three months afterwards there was a tempest in Dansington. COBBYN had gone
away for two days and had stayed away for good. His intimates and the
Dansington tradesmen became uneasy, rumours began to spread, and the result
was a crash which made some very knowing fellows look extremely foolish,
and filled the Club with honest British imprecations. Little TOM SPINDLE,
who commanded a troop of the Fallowshire Yeomanry (the Duke of
DASHBOROUGH'S Hussars) and had the reputation of spending a royal income
with beggarly meanness, had backed one of COBBYN'S bills for L1,000. Sir
PAUL PACKTHREAD, one of the greatest of the local magnates, had lent him
L500 without a scrap of security, and Colonel CHUTNEY had put L300 into the
Ephemeral Soapsuds Company, Limited, of which COBBYN was to have been the
managing director. I cannot go through the whole long list. He had fleeced
all that was fleeceable in Dansington, and had vanished into the clouds.
How he managed to do it, by what artful proposals he conquered the avarice
of SPINDLE, prevailed over the mercantile sagacity of PACKTHREAD, and
subdued the fiery temper of CHUTNEY, will never be known. Partly, no doubt,
he succeeded by being here and there perfectly truthful and candid. He
_was_ the son of a well-to-do country Squire, but the father had long since
ejected his offspring from the paternal mansion; he had really travelled
and had often displayed pluck. But his chief gifts were his good-humour,
his ardent imagination, and a p