As she spoke, a middle-aged gentleman in fashionable costume entered the room. He was a somewhat short man, broadly built, with regular features, and a shining bald forehead, from which his lightly-powdered hair was completely drawn off, and fastened behind in a pigtail. The expression of his countenance was bland, with an apparently candid manner, a smile showing his fine white teeth; and an air of nonchalance, though rather evidently the result of artificial politeness than of natural courtesy or good breeding. He bowed with a flourish of his hat to Lady Tryon, and gave a familiar nod to the young gentleman as he sank back in the seat placed for him by the servant. Lady Tryon had had some previous transactions with Mr. Flockton, who was the great lottery contractor. It was part of his business to know everybody, as well as their private concerns, in all parts of the United Kingdom. Many was the lady of rank, a merchant's or a shopkeeper's wife in London, with whom Mr. Flockton had managed to scrape acquaintance, but his chief constituents were among the great masses of society that underlie the noble and the wealthy. His baits and nets lay ready for fish of the smallest size, also, many who could with difficulty raise the sum of 1 pound 11 shillings 6 pence, whereby a sixteenth share of the 20,000 pound prize might by two lucky turns of the wheel of fortune be gained. He caught others by half and even whole tickets at various prices. In country inns Mr. Flockton's advertisements were found fastened up among the political ballads on the walls of the public rooms. They were often circulated by the same book-hawkers who supplied the vast numbers of tracts and verses then published on "The rights of man," and "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," advocated by the French Revolutionists and the English Jacobins. In every manufacturing town and district they came round with parcels of goods and patterns, and were eagerly read by workpeople and masters alike. They circulated in the servants' halls, even before they were read in the oak parlours and cedar galleries of the granges and lordly castles of the land, and many a poor clergyman dreamed of education for his boys and portions for his girls from the result of a lottery ticket. "I have called, your ladyship, to bring the ten lottery tickets you desired to possess. A cheque on your bankers will pay me for them, and it is my belief that you will find that one of them brings you the great prize. Perhaps this young gentleman would like to take two or three, a mere trifle will give him every prospect of a large sum, and should your ladyship miss it, he would have a greater chance of gaining the prize. What does your ladyship say? Surely you have balance at your bankers' sufficient to buy fifty tickets, and, in my opinion, the wisest people will buy the most; the more bought, the greater the chance of success."