CHAPTER LV. THE COUNCIL OF WAR.—POOR PUSS AGAIN! CHAPTER LVI. A FINE RUN!—THE MAINCHANCE CORRESPONDENCE. CHAPTER LVII. THE ANTHONY THOM TRAP. CHAPTER LVIII. THE ANTHONY THOM TAKE. CHAPTER LIX. ANOTHER COUNCIL OF WAR.—MR. GALLON AT HOME. CHAPTER LX. MR. CARROTY KEBBEL. CHAPTER LXI. THE HUNT BALL.—MISS DE GLANCEY’S REFLECTIONS. CHAPTER LXII. LOVE AT SECOND SIGHT.—CUPID’S SETTLING DAY. CHAPTER LXIII. A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. IT may be a recommendation to the lover of light literature to be told, that the following story does not involve the complication of a plot. It is a mere continuous narrative of an almost everyday exaggeration, interspersed with sporting scenes and excellent illustrations by Leech. March 31, 1858. CHAPTER I. OUR HERO AND CO.—A SLEEPING PARTNER. 017m _Original Size_ ONSIDERING that Billy Pringle, or Fine Billy, as his good-natured friends called him, was only an underbred chap, he was as good an imitation of a Swell as ever we saw. He had all the airy dreaminess of an hereditary high flyer, while his big talk and off-hand manner strengthened the delusion. It was only when you came to close quarters with him, and found that though he talked in pounds he acted in pence, and marked his fine dictionary words and laboured expletives, that you came to the conclusion that he was “painfully gentlemanly.” So few people, however, agree upon what a gentleman is, that Billy was well calculated to pass muster with the million. Fine shirts, fine ties, fine talk, fine trinkets, go a long way towards furnishing the character with many. Billy was liberal, not to say prodigal, in all these. The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one. Just as the man who is always talking about honour, morality, fine feeling, and so on never knows anything of these qualities but the name.