He had chosen to fight with swords, the blade being the weapon in whose use he most desired practice. In his shirt-sleeves, with that acquired serenity which comes of the mind's forcing itself not to contemplate the peril at hand, he stood under a tree at one end of a clear space, while his antagonist, seconded by an old faded beau, emerged from a hackney coach and got himself ready. The men fought in the centre of the clear space. Dick began defensively, but he had not parried more than three of the captain's thrusts, till he perceived that the enemy was shaky with liquor. Dick therefore waited only until the other's panting indicated failing wind. Then he suddenly pressed matters, with such accuracy and persistence that the whole thing was over in a minute,--Dick putting on his waistcoat and frock, with Lord George's assistance, and Captain Delahenty on the ground with a wounded shoulder that the surgeon was pronouncing likely to heal in a month or six weeks. Dick drove back to Bond Street in great elation, eager for more duels. Lord Alderby's state of mind towards Dick was not sweetened by this occurrence, as was shown by his lordship's ill-sustained pretence of ignoring Dick's presence when next the two were in the same company. This happened to be in a clubhouse in St. James's Street, Dick's name having been written down there by Lord George, to whom he had satisfactorily accounted for his ignorance of London and of London society. Chance brought Lord Alderby and Dick to the same card table, and not as partners. His lordship soon had his revenge, and a far greater one than he thought it to be, for Dick, playing on after first losses, in the confidence that fortune would serve him as usually, lost his every guinea. He would have staked the few loose shillings he still had left, but that the largeness of the bets would have made such a proposition ridiculous. He went home to Bond Street in a kind of consternation, faced by the reality that he was a pauper in London, and that luck had turned against him. Now that he had tasted the life of pleasure, poverty seemed not again endurable. Yet he braced himself to consider what was to be done. Now that he had no money worth mentioning, the hospitality he received from Lord George was to Dick nothing else than charity. To continue accepting it would make his situation soon insupportable. He quickly took his resolution. He must fall back to a lower sphere, where a shilling was worth something, and recoup himself; that done, he would emerge again into the world to which Lord George had introduced him.