The viands were exquisite; the wine came from the cellars of deceased archbishops and embassadors. The company was select; the party did not exceed eight. Four were the eldest sons of peers (from a baron to a duke); one was a professed wit, never to be got without a month’s notice, and, where a _parvenu_ was host, a certainty of green-pease and peaches—out of season; the sixth, to Randal’s astonishment, was Mr. Richard Avenel; himself and the Baron made up the complement. The eldest sons recognized each other with a meaning smile; the most juvenile of them, indeed (it was his first year in London), had the grace to blush and look sheepish. The others were more hardened; but they all united in regarding with surprise both Randal and Dick Avenel. The former was known to most of them personally; and to all, by repute, as a grave, clever, promising young man, rather prudent than lavish, and never suspected to have got into a scrape. What the deuce did he do there? Mr. Avenel puzzled them yet more. A middle-aged man, said to be in business, whom they had observed “about town” (for he had a noticeable face and figure)—that is, seen riding in the park, or lounging in the pit at the opera, but never set eyes on at a recognized club, or in the coteries of their “set;”—a man whose wife gave horrid third-rate parties, that took up half-a-column in the _Morning Post_ with a list of “The Company Present”—in which a sprinkling of dowagers out of fashion, and a foreign title or two, made the darkness of the obscurer names doubly dark. Why this man should be asked to meet _them_, by Baron Levy, too—a decided tuft-hunter and would-be exclusive—called all their faculties into exercise. The wit, who, being the son of a small tradesman, but in the very best society, gave himself far greater airs than the young lords, impertinently solved the mystery. “Depend on it,” whispered he to Spendquick—“depend on it the man is the X. Y. of the _Times_, who offers to lend any sums of money from £10 to half-a-million. He’s the man who has all your bills: Levy is only his jackall.” “’Pon my soul,” said Spendquick, rather alarmed, “if that’s the case, one may as well be civil to him.” “_You_, certainly,” said the wit. “But I never yet found an X. Y. who would advance me the L. s.; and, therefore, I shall not be more respectful to X. Y. than to any other unknown quantity.”