“What say you to that, gentlemen?” he cried.  “Egad, I’ll be sworn he deserves credit,—­an arrant young spark out of the Colonies, scarce turned nineteen, defeating a duke of the realm on horseback, and preaching the gospel of ‘no taxation’ at Brooks’s Club!  Nor the favour of Sandwich or March could turn him from his principles.”

Modesty, my dears, does not permit me to picture the enthusiasm of these good gentlemen, who bore the responsibility of the colony of Maryland upon their shoulders.  They made more of me than I deserved.  In vain did I seek to explain that if a young man was but well-born, and had a full purse and a turn for high play, his principles might go hang, for all Mr. Fox cared.  Colonel Lloyd commanded that the famous rose punch-bowl be filled to the brim with Mr. Claude’s best summer brew, and they drank my health and my grandfather’s memory.  It mattered little to them that I was poor.  They vowed I should not lose by my choice.  Mr. Bordley offered me a home, and added that I should have employment enough in the days to come.  Mr. Carroll pressed me likewise.  And big-hearted Colonel Lloyd desired to send me to King’s College, as was my grandfather’s wish, where Will Fotheringay and my cousin Philip had been for a term.  I might make a barrister of myself.  Mr. Swain alone was silent and thoughtful, but I did not for an instant doubt that he would have done as much for me.

Before we broke up for the evening the gentlemen plied me with questions concerning the state of affairs in England, and the temper of his Majesty and Parliament.  I say without vanity that I was able to enlighten them not a little, for I had learned a deeper lesson from the set into which I had fallen in London than if I had become the confidant of Rockingham himself.  America was a long way from England in those days.  I regretted that I had not arrived in London in time to witness Lord Chatham’s dramatic return to politics in January, when he had completed the work of Junius, and broken up the Grafton ministry.  But I told them of the debate I had heard in St. Stephen’s, and made them laugh over Mr. Fox’s rescue of the King’s friends, and the hustling of Mr. Burke from the Lords.

They were very curious, too, about Mr. Manners; and I was put to much ingenuity to answer their queries and not reveal my own connection with him.  They wished to know if it were true that some nobleman had flung a bottle at his head in a rage because Dorothy would not marry him, as Dr. Courtenay’s letter had stated.  I replied that it was so.  I did not add that it was the same nobleman who had been pitched into the Serpentine.  Nor did I mention the fight at Vauxhall.  I made no doubt these things would come to their ears, but I did not choose to be the one to tell them.  Mr. Swain remained after the other gentlemen, and asked me if I would come with him to Gloucester Street; that he had something to say to me.  We went the long way thither, and I was very grateful to him for avoiding Marlboro’ Street, which must needs bring me painful recollections.  He said little on the way.