“Morning, Charles!  Howdy, Jack!” said his Lordship, apathetically.  “Glad to know you, Mr. Carvel.  Heard of your family.  ’Slife!  Wish there were more like ’em in the province.”

This sentiment not sitting very well upon his Lordship, I bowed, and said nothing.

“By the bye,” he continued, pouring out his chocolate into the dish, “I sent a damned rake of a parson out there some years gone.  Handsome devil, too.  Never seen his match with the women, egad.  ’Od’s fish—­” he leered.  And then added with an oath and a nod and a vile remark:  “Married three times to my knowledge.  Carried off dozen or so more.  Some of ’em for me.  Many a good night I’ve had with him.  Drank between us one evening at Essex’s gallon and half Champagne and Burgundy apiece.  He got to know too much, y’ know,” he concluded, with a wicked wink.  “Had to buy him up pack him off.”

“His name, Fred?” said Comyn, with a smile at me.

“’Sdeath!  That’s it.  Trouble to remember.  Damned if I can think.”  And he repeated this remark over and over.

“Allen?” said Comyn.

“Yes,” said Baltimore; “Allen.  And egad I think he’ll find hell a hotter place than me.  You know him, Mr. Carvel?”

“Yes,” I replied.  I said no more.  I make no reservations when I avow I was never so disgusted in my life.  But as I looked upon him, haggard and worn, with retribution so neat at hand, I had no words to protest or condemn.

Baltimore gave a hollow mirthless laugh, stopped short, and looked at Charles Fox.

“Curse you, Charles!  I suppose you are after that little matter I owe you for quinze.”

“Damn the little matter!” said Fox.  “Come, get you perfumed and dressed, and order up some of your Tokay while we wait.  I have to go to St. Stephens.  Mr. Carvel has come to buy your horse Pollux.  He has bet Chartersea two hundred guineas he rides him for twenty minutes.”

“The devil he has!” cried his Lordship, jaded no longer.  “Why, you must know, Mr. Carvel, there was no groom in my stables who would sit him until Foley made me a present of his man, Miller, who started to ride him to Hyde Park.  As he came out of Great Russell Street, by gads life! the horse broke and ran out the Tottenham Court Road all the way to Hampstead.  And the fiend picked out a big stone water trough and tossed Miller against it.  Then they gathered up the fragments.  Damme if I like to see suicide, Mr. Carvel.  If Chartersea wants to kill you, let him try it in the fields behind Montagu House here.”

I told his Lordship that I had made the wager, and could not in honour withdraw, though the horse had killed a dozen grooms.  But already he seemed to have lost interest.  He gave a languid pull at the velvet tassel on his bell-rope, ordered the wine; and, being informed that his anteroom below was full of people, had them all dismissed with the message that he was engaged upon important affairs.  He told Mr. Fox he had heard of the Jerusalem Chamber, and vowed he would have a like institution.  He told me he wished the colony of Maryland in hell; that he was worn out with the quarrels of Governor Eden and his Assembly, and offered to lay a guinea that the Governor’s agent would get to him that day,—­will-he, nill-he.  I did not think it worth while to argue with such a man.