Then the re-action came. His Royal Highness expressed to the Military authorities and the House of Commons his apologies for an unintentional infraction of Army regulations; it was pointed out that playing a game of cards in a private house was not setting a public example and that the situation was so unique that any man in the Prince's place would have been pardoned in not knowing what to do; the cause of the trouble was dismissed from the Army and expelled from his clubs. The _Daily Telegraph_ pointed out that the carrying of the Baccarat counters, which was apparently deemed the most serious part of the matter by many commentators, was a very common habit with players of this game as the symbols for money tended to moderation in playing, and were better in every way than slips of paper. Years afterwards, Mr. Arnold White stated it as a fact that these famous bits of pasteboard were actually a present from the Princess of Wales. The public came to feel after the first hasty judgment was given that, after all, the Prince had risked a good deal for a friend and the _Observer_ went so far as to say that "under the most difficult and trying circumstances His Royal Highness has acted as ninety-nine Englishmen out of a hundred would have done." The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Berry, the eminent Non-conformist divine, declared that the people were not going to be unduly severe in their judgment. "They recognize the fact that he does a great deal of public work and is compelled to live almost continually a life of unnatural pressure. It is, therefore, to say the least, understandable that he should seek pleasure and relaxation in some form of excitement."