Our host that evening was Mr Jermyn, a gentleman in great repute at Court, and he entertained us most handsomely at the New Spring Garden, according to me a welcome of especial courtesy, that I might be at my ease and feel no stranger among the company. He placed me on his left hand, Darrell being on my other side, while opposite to me sat my lord the Earl of Carford, a fine-looking man of thirty or a year or two above. Among the guests Mr Darrell indicated several whose names were known to me, such as the witty Lord Rochester and the French Ambassador, M. de Cominges, a very stately gentleman. These, however, being at the other end of the table, I made no acquaintance with them, and contented myself with listening to the conversation of my neighbours, putting in a word where I seemed able with propriety and without displaying an ignorance of which I was very sensible. It seemed to me that Lord Carford, to whom I had not been formally presented (indeed, all talked to one another without ceremony) received what I said with more than sufficient haughtiness and distance; but on Darrell whispering humorously that he was a great lord, and held himself even greater than he was, I made little of it, thinking my best revenge would be to give him a lesson in courtesy. Thus all went well till we had finished eating and sat sipping our wine. Then my Lord Carford, being a little overheated with what he had drunk, began suddenly to inveigh against the King with remarkable warmth and freedom, so that it seemed evident that he smarted under some recent grievance. The raillery of our host, not too nice or delicate, soon spurred him to a discovery of his complaint. He asked nothing better than to be urged to a disclosure. "Neither rank, nor friendship, nor service," he said, smiting the table, "are enough to gain the smallest favour from the King. All goes to the women; they have but to ask to have. I prayed the King to give me for a cousin of mine a place in the Life Guards that was to be vacant, and he--by Heaven, he promised! Then comes Nell, and Nell wants it for a friend--and Nell has it for a friend--and I go empty!" I had started when he spoke of the Life Guards, and sat now in a state of great disturbance. Darrell also, as I perceived, was very uneasy, and made a hasty effort to alter the course of the conversation; but Mr Jermyn would not have it. "Who is the happy--the new happy man, that is Mistress Nell's friend?" he asked, smiling. "Some clod from the country," returned the Earl; "his name, they say, is Dale." I felt my heart beating, but I trust that I looked cool enough as I leant across and said, "Your lordship is misinformed. I have the best of reasons for saying so." "The reasons may be good, sir," he retorted with a stare, "but they are not evident." "I am myself just named to a commission in the King's Life Guards, and my name is Dale," said I, restraining myself to a show of composure, for I felt Darrell's hand on my arm.