me grave, almost stern. His high, somewhat
narrow, slightly retreating forehead, long nose and piercing eyes lent
themselves readily to severity. Twenty-five years before it was not so.
He was then the gayest of the gay and in the heyday of his career. Much
had happened since then. Disappointed political ambitions and political
flirtations with the Jacobite party had ended in exile in France, from
which, having been pardoned, he had not long returned.

Meeting Gay, the latter suggested a prowl in St. Giles, where life was
in more than its usual turmoil consequent upon the execution of Jack
Sheppard; so Viscount Bolingbroke revisited the slums of St. Giles,
which had been the scene of many an orgy in his hot youth.

The nobleman returned no answer to Gay's question. His thoughts had gone
back to his early manhood when he took his pleasure wherever he found
it. In some of his mad moods St. Giles was more to his taste than St.
James's. So long as the face was beautiful, and the tongue given to
piquant raillery, any girl was good enough for him. He was of the time
when a love intrigue was a necessary part of a man's life, and not
infrequently of a woman's too.

Successful lover though he had been he was not all conquering. The
ballad singer's tender liquid tones carried his memory back to the
low-born girl with the laughing eyes who had captured his heart. She
sold oranges about the door of the Court of Requests, she sang ballads
in the street, she was a little better than a light of love, yet
Bolingbroke could never claim her as his own. It angered him sorely
that she had a smile for others. But he bore her no malice, or he would
hardly have written his poetical tribute commencing:--

"Dear, thoughtless Clara, to my verse attend,
Believe for once the lover and the friend."

So Gay's words were unheeded. A heavy step sounded on the sanded floor.
A big man with features formed on an ample mould had entered. Gay was
entranced by the singer and did not hear him. The newcomer stood
silently behind the poet. He too, was listening intently.

The girl's voice died into a cadence. Gay beckoned to her and she came
up to the window.

"Finely sung, Polly," cried Gay. "Who taught thee, child?"

"I taught myself, sir," said she dropping a curtsey.

"Then you had a good teacher. There's a crown for you."

"Oh sir ... it's too much."

"Nay, Polly--if your name isn't Polly it ought to be. What does your
mother c