He might have conducted himself respectably enough had he been rich, at least he fervently believed so; but he was poor, and therefore driven to stratagems to maintain his position in society. Cheated by his guardians and neglected by his tutor, he was sent into the world half ruined, and wholly ignorant, to become at first a victim, and afterwards the victimizer. With no spirit of retributive vengeance, there was nothing of reprisal in his line of conduct, he simply thought that such was the natural and inevitable course of events, and that every man begins as dupe, and ends as knave. The highest flight of the human mind, in his esteem, was successful hypocrisy; and although without the plastic wit or the actual knowledge of life which are required well to sustain a part, he had contrived to impose upon a very large number of persons who looked up to his rank; for, strange enough, many who would not have been duped by a commoner, fell easy victims to the arts of “my Lord.” The value of his title he understood perfectly. He knew everything it could, and everything it could not, do for him. He was aware that the aristocracy of England would stand by one of their order through many vicissitudes, and that he who is born to a coronet has a charmed life, in circumstances where one less noble must perish ingloriously. He knew, too, how, for very shame's sake, they would screen one of themselves, and by a hundred devices seem to contradict before the world what they lament over behind its back; and, lastly, he knew well that he had always a title and a lineage to bestow, and that the peerage was the great prize among the daughters of men. Now, latterly, he had been pushing prerogative somewhat too far. He had won large sums from young men not out of their teens; he had been associated in play transactions with names less than reputable; and, finally, having backed a stable to an immense amount at Newmarket, had levanted on the day of his losing. He had done the act deliberately and calmly. It was a coup which, if successful, replaced him in credit and affluence; if a failure, it only confirmed the wavering judgment of his set, and left him to shift for the future in a different sphere; for, while a disgraced viscount is very bad company for viscounts, he is often a very welcome guest amongst that amiably innocent class who think the privileges of the aristocracy include bad morals with blue ribbons. The Turf could now no longer be a career with him. Ecarte and lansquenet were almost as much out of the question. Billiards, as Sir Walter said of literature, “might be a walking-stick, but never a crutch.” There was, then, nothing left for it but marriage. A rich heiress was his last coup; and as, in all likelihood, the thing could not be done twice, it required geat circumspection.