"So should I, my lord, nor have I refused Mr. Topsparkle my friendship," answered Philter, with a grand air. "I spent a week at his country seat last winter; a most magnificent mansion, a mediæval abbey furnished with all the luxuries which modern art and the invention of a sybarite could devise. Mr. Topsparkle is a connoisseur, an enthusiast in painting and sculpture, porcelains, enamels, bronzes, and boule cabinets, and as he draws upon a kind of Fortunatus's purse, he can afford to gratify every fancy, however exorbitant. Nor does he stint the pleasures of his friends. Although no sportsman, he has the finest stud and the finest stable in Hampshire, and although an absolute ascetic in his eating and drinking, he has the best table and the best cellar of any gentleman of my acquaintance." "I can easily credit that," said Lavendale, "since I opine you do not count your moneyed friends by the dozen." "O, but there are varieties of the species," answered Philter, unabashed by the snub. "There are many who have a genius for making money, but few who possess the noble art of spending it. Indeed, I doubt if you ever get those two faculties united in the same person. The man who makes his own fortune has a silly greed for keeping it. Only in the second generation of money-getters do you find the royal art of the spender and the connoisseur. Now, our friend Topsparkle was born in the purple. He was swaddled in point d'Alençon, and fed out of a parcel-gilt porringer." "So you have been at Ringwood Abbey, Tom," said Lavendale, with a half-unconscious insolence. "The company there must be curiously mixed, I take it."