I stared at him in amazement. He was grown a deal stouter, but my eye was caught and held by the blue coat and buff waistcoat he wore. They were frayed and stained and shabby, yet they seemed all of a piece with some new grandeur come upon the man. "Is all the world turning virtuous? Is the millennium arrived?" I cried. He smiled, with his old boyish smile. "You think me changed some since that morning we drove together to Holland House--do you remember it after the night at St. Stephen's?" "Remember it!" I repeated, with emphasis, "I'll warrant I can give you every bit of our talk." "I have seen many men since, but never have I met your equal for a most damnable frankness, Richard Carvel. Even Jack, here, is not half so blunt and uncompromising. But you took my fancy--God knows why!--that first night I clapped eyes on you in Arlington Street, and I loved you when your simplicity made us that speech at Brooks's Club. So you have not forgotten that morning under the trees, when the dew was on the grass. Faith, I am glad of it. What children we were!" he said, and sighed. "And yet you were a Junior Lord," I said. "Which is more than I am now," he answered. "Somehow--you may laugh --somehow I have never been able to shake off the influence of your words, Richard. Your cursed earnestness scared me." "Scared you?" I cried, in astonishment. "Just that," said Charles. "Jack will bear witness that I have said so to Dolly a score of times. For I had never imagined such a single character as yours. You know we were all of us rakes at fifteen, to whom everything good in the universe was a joke. And do you recall the teamster we met by the Park, and how he arrested his salute when he saw who it was? At another time I should have laughed over that, but it cut me to have it happen when you were along." "And I'll lay an hundred guineas to a farthing the fellow would put his head on the block for Charles now," cut in his Lordship, with his hand on Mr. Fox's shoulder. "Behold, O Prophet," he cried, "one who is become the champion of the People he reviled! Behold the friend of Rebellion and 'Lese Majeste', the viper in Britannia's bosom!" "Oh, have done, Jack," said Mr. Fox, impatiently, "you have no more music in your soul than a cow. Damned little virtue attaches to it, Richard," he went on. "North threw me out, and the king would have nothing to do with me, so I had to pick up with you rebels and traitors."