Captain Lionel Brakespere, just at that time, could have had no worse company. He had been bored to death by the terrible monotony of a long sea-voyage, and had found on landing in England that his boredom was by no means at an end. He had heard from his mother that "that awkward business had all been squared," as he phrased it; and that it was desirable he should return home at once, where there was a chance of a marriage by which "a big something was to be pulled off," as he phrased it again. So he had come back, and there he was at Long's; but as yet he was by no means happy. He was doubtful as to his position in society, as to how much of his escapade was known, as to whether he would be all right with his former set, or whether he would get the cold shoulder, and perhaps be cut. He could only learn this by seeing Algy Barford, or some other fellow of the _clique_; and every fellow was of course out of town at that infernal time of year. He must wait, at all events, until he had seen his mother, to whom he had sent word of his arrival. He might be able to learn something of all this from her. Meantime he had taken a private room; not that there was much chance of his meeting any one in the coffee-room, but some fellow might perhaps stop there for the night on his way through town; and he had sent for the tailor, and the hair-cutter fellow, and that sort of thing, and was going to be made like a Christian again--not like the cad he'd looked like in that infernal place out there.