“Bah!” said a voice near the door. “A foundling--an outcast--a man of no birth--I’ll have no more of him.” Captain Ferrers tossed aside his coat and hat and came forward into the glare of the candles. Behind him followed the tall figure of Sir Henry Heywood, whose gray hair and more sober garb and lineaments made the gay apparel of his companion the more splendid by comparison. Captain Ferrers wore the rich accouterments of a captain in the Body-guard, and his manner and address showed the bluster of a bully of the barracks. The face, somewhat ruddy in color, was of a certain heavy regularity of feature, but his eyes were small, like a pig’s, and as he came into the light they flickered and guttered like a candle at a puff of the breath. There were lines, too, at the corners of the mouth, and the pursing of the thin lips gave him the air of a man older than his years. “Come, Ferrers,” said Cornbury, good-naturedly, “give the devil his due.” Wynne laughed. “Gawd, man! he’s givin’ him his due. Aren’t you, Ferrers?” The captain scowled. “I’ faith I am. Two hundred guineas again last night. May the plague take him! Such luck is not in nature.” “He wins upon us all, by the Lord!” said Cornbury, stoutly. Heywood sneered. “Bah! You Irish are too easy with your likes--” “And dislikes, too,” returned Cornbury, with a swift glance. “Faugh!” snapped Ferrers. “The man saved your life, but you can’t thrust him down our throats, Captain Cornbury.” “He’s cooked his goose well this time, thank God!” said Wynne. “We’ll soon be rid of him.” “Another duel?” asked Heywood, carelessly. “What!” cried Downey. “Have you not heard of the struggle for precedence this afternoon? Why, man, ’tis the talk of London. To-day there was a fight between the coaches and retainers of the Embassades of France and Spain. Thanks to Mornay, the French coach was disastrously defeated by the Spaniards. There is a great to-do at Whitehall, for the Grand Monarque thinks more of his prestige in London even than in Paris. God help the man who thwarts him in this! It is death or the Bastile, and our own King would rather offend God than Louis.” “And Mornay--”