The thousand pounds were in Algernon’s hands at last.  He had made his escape from Boyne’s Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain the cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day’s sun was extinguished.  There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a hundred severally; and two fifties.  And all had come to him through the mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!

It was enough to make one in love with civilization.  Money, when it is once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find it there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth—­the typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above the conditions of earth.

He knew the very features of the notes.  That gallant old Five Hundred, who might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation like a grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in court-ruffles—­say, Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent.  The Hundreds were his Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one was possessed of unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable regiments, at the call of his lord, Algernon.

He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the largest sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his pleasure, he did confess it for half an instant.  Five Hundred in the bulk he had never attained to.  He felt it as a fortification against every mishap in life.

To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation imparted by the sum was intoxicating.  But, thinking too much of the Five Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect.  So, Algernon, pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that he had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating from the night at the theatre.  Algernon had stopped his mouth on that point, as well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by immediately attempting to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way for a word in private.  A one-pound creditor had no particular terrors for him, and he manoeuvred the old man neatly, saying, as previously, “Really, I don’t know the young person you allude to:  I happened to meet her, or some one like her, casually,” and dropping his voice, “I’m rather short—­what do you think?  Could you?—­a trifling accommodation?” from which Anthony fled.

But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had just heard of Dahlia.