But verily, he had his reward in the
open-mouthed admiration of three or four younkers of his own standing,
then assembled at Harleigh Hall, who looked up to him as something
between a hero and an oracle; and in the encouraging familiarity and
approval of one or two gentlemen of maturer age, who swore he was a
fine fellow, and proved they thought so by winning bets of him at
billiards, and by selling him horses that would have fetched "twice
the money at Tattersall's," with other bargains of an equally
advantageous description. Although we were four days in the same
house, meeting each evening at dinner, and occasionally riding and
walking in the same group, our acquaintance continued of the very
slightest description, and I took my departure without anything
approaching to intimacy having sprung up between us. Amongst the large
party of visitors at the Hall, were not wanting persons of tastes more
suited to my own than those of Oakley and his little knot of
flatterers and admirers; and he, on his part, was far too much taken
up with his newly-inherited fortune--which he evidently considered
inexhaustible--with planning amusements, and inhaling adulatory
incense, to pay attention to a man whom, as full fifteen years his
senior, he doubtless set down as an old fellow, a "slow coach," and
perhaps even as a member of that distinguished corporation known as
the "Fogie Club." So that when we met in London, during the ensuing
season, occasionally in the street and once or twice in a ballroom, a
slight bow or word of recognition was all that passed between us. I
could perceive, however, that Oakley still kept up the rapid pace at
which he had started, and lived, with a few hundreds a-year, as if he
had possessed as many thousands. The proximity of my quiet club to the
fashionable and expensive one into which he had obtained admission,
gave me many opportunities of observing his proceedings, and those
opportunities, in my capacity of a student of human nature, I did not
neglect. I had marked his career and ultimate fate in my mind, and was
curious to see my predictions verified, although I sincerely wished
they might not be, for they were anything but favourable to the
welfare of Oakley, who, in spite of his follies, had generous and
manly qualities. His prodigality was not of that purely egotistical
description most commonly found in spendthrifts of his class. He would
give a lavish alms to a whining beggar, as freely as he wou