Well, then, he rode over the Down and came out through the Combe to his cousin’s house. The gate out of the field into the park was shut, and as he leaned over to open it he dropped his crop. I am ashamed to say that--it was the only act of the kind in his career, but men who desire to succeed ought not to act in this fashion--he did not get down to pick it up because he was afraid that if he did he might not be able to get on to the horse again. With infinite trouble, leaning right down over the horse’s neck, he managed to open the gate with his hands, but in doing so he burst his collar, and he had to keep it more or less in place by putting down his chin in a ridiculous and affected attitude. His hopes of making a fine entry at a pretty ambling trot, that perhaps his cousin would be watching from the window, were already sufficiently spoilt by the necessity he was under of keeping his collar thus, when the accursed animal bolted, and with the speed of lightning passed directly in front of a little lawn where his cousin, his cousin’s wife, and their little child were seated admiring the summer’s day. It was not until the horse had taken him nearly half a mile away that he got him right again, and so returned hot, dishevelled, and very miserable. But they received him kindly, and his cousin’s wife, who was a most motherly woman, put him as best she could at his ease. She even got him another collar, knowing how terrible is the state of the soul when the collar is burst in company. And he sat down with them to make friends and discuss the future. He had always heard that among the chief avenues to success is to play with and be kind to the children of the Great, so he smiled in a winning manner at his cousin’s little boy, and stretching out his arms took the child playfully by the hand. A piercing scream and a sharp kick upon the shin simultaneously informed him that he had fallen into yet another misfortune, and the boy’s mother, though she was kindness itself, was startled into speaking to him very sharply, and telling him that the poor lad suffered from a deeply cut finger which was then but slowly healing. He made his apologies in a nervous but sincere manner, and in doing so was awkward enough to upset the little table which they had carried out upon the lawn, and upon which had been set the cups and saucers for tea. The whole thing was exceedingly annoying. In this way did the Unfortunate Man enter the great arena of modern political life. You must not imagine that he failed to obtain the sinecure which his father had sent him to secure. As I have already said, the failure of the Unfortunate Man was not a failure in major plans but in details. There may have been some to whom his career appeared enviable or even glorious, but Fate always watched him in a merry mood, and he was destined to suffer an interior misery which never failed to be sharpened and enlivened by the innumerable accidents of life.