The Scotch gentleman who had remarked that Colonel Alsager was "a deevil among the sax" had some foundation for his observation; for it was a fact that, from the days when Laurence left Eton and was gazetted to the Coldstreams, until he sold his commission and left England in disgust, his name had always been coupled by the gossips with that of some lady well known either in or out of society. He was a mere boy, slim and whiskerless, when the intense admiration which he excited in the breast of Mdlle. Valentine, combined with what she afterwards termed the "coldly insular" manner in which he treated her, gave that charming danseuse such a _migraine_ as rendered her unable to appear in public for a week, and very nearly caused Mr. Lumley to be favoured with a row equal to the celebrated Tamburini riot in the days of M. Laporte. He was not more than twenty when "Punter" Blair told him that his goings-on with Lady Mary Blair, the Punter's sister-in-law, were the talk of the town; and that if her husband, the Admiral, was blind, he, the Punter, wasn't, as he'd let Alsager pretty soon know. Laurence replied that the Punter had better mind his own business,--which was "legging" young boys at _écarté_ and blind-hookey,--and leave his brother's wife alone; upon which Punter Blair sent O'Dwyer of the 18th with a message; and there must inevitably have been a meeting, had not Blair's colonel got a hint of it, and caused it to be intimated to Mr. Blair that unless this matter with Mr. Alsager were arranged, he, the colonel, should have to take such notice of "other matters" affecting Mr. Blair as would compel that gentleman to send in his papers.