“You itch to improve on the situation,” said he, with a twinkling gravity. “Harkee! Now’s your opportunity. Here am I;--yonder stands Branscome’s lottery office. Draw your moral, my friend, and ease you of your load.” The lawyer drew in his breath, his face crinkling. “Well,” said he--fore-read and embarrassed but conscious of right--“the man was an earl’s fellow once.” “It proves him the more admirable for being a rich man now!” “Sir Robert, Sir Robert! ’tis an evil system and a mistaken. How is he rich? On the pitiful savings of shoeblacks and servant wenches. ’Tis such as he bid industry sit hands in lap and starve on illusive hopes. For a single chance in fifty thousand he buys her ruin; and what is all this but bitter gambling?” “Ha, ha! old gentleman. We reach the point at once. But, believe me, sir, I never starved a servant wench or took anything from her but a kiss--and that I returned.” The lawyer sighed. “Go your ways,” he said. “You have your father’s laugh.” “What--you knew him?” “I had the fortune to do him a service once--’twas during the riots of ’68, when foul John Wilkes was committed to King’s Bench, on a writ of _capias utlagatum_, and the red-coats let fly at the mob. Your father commanded. They called it the St. George’s Fields massacre, and all concerned in it gained a mighty unpopularity.” “Yet he was but a simple soldier and obeyed orders.” “Well, sir, an unpopular king must needs have unpopular ministers, and so down the scale. Let a tyrant fall (I speak in illustration only--God bless his Majesty!) and his very scullions come down with him. I did Sir Robert a service, I say; and he repaid me with his confidence.” “His son is beholden to you. You repeat yourself on behalf of a scapegrace, I fear. You were not his adviser?” “In one matter only that you shall learn. Now, my friend?” The last words were addressed to an odd-looking individual who had come up to them as they talked, and who now presented certain savoury goods to their inspection with a dumb gesture of invitation. The creature was a lank, middle-sized man, with a meagre face of decorum and rather delicate features set in an expression of confident apathy. He was scrupulously attired in dress-coat, vest and knee-breeches of stainless black broadcloth; and black silk stockings, ending in shoes decorated with large steel buckles, encased his neat deliberate legs. A great shirt-frill stood out from his breast, like a table napkin from a tumbler, and his neck cherished the spotless embrace of a lawny cravat. On his head he wore no covering save its natural one; but this was so clipt and bepowdered as almost to give the appearance of a close cap of linen. A short apron of the softest texture, which concealed a third of his glories, seemed designed rather to advertise his calling than to protect his broadcloth.