Nicholas Kenyon was one of those men who are born and not made. He opened his eyes to find himself in an atmosphere of aristocratic roguery. The beautiful old house in which his father lived was mortgaged to the very tops of the chimneys. It was maintained on money borrowed from the loan sharks at an exorbitant interest. It was filled with men and women who, like his own parents, were clever and intellectual enough to work for their livelihood, but who preferred to live on their wits and cling to society by the skin of their teeth. In this atmosphere of expert parasites--an atmosphere as false as it was light-hearted--Nicholas was brought up. He was a complete man of the world at fourteen. Even at that age he gambled, raced and borrowed money; and in order to provide himself with the necessities of life he ran a roulette table in secret at Eton and made a book for the racing bets of the little boys of his own kidney. Highly gifted and endowed with a most likable personality, with the art of eluding punishment for misdeeds brought to a masterly completeness, he could have been shaped, under different circumstances, into a man whose name would stand high in his country. With the proper training and discipline and the right sense of duty which is given to those lucky lads whose parents are responsible and honorable he had it in his power to become a famous diplomat. As it was, he entered Oxford as a parasite and would leave the university for the world in the same capacity. He was entirely unscrupulous. He had no code of honor. He quietly used the men about him to provide him with amusement, money, hospitality, and to insure him against having to work. He turned his personality into a sort of business asset--a kind of limited liability company--which brought him in regular dividends. His breeding and good form, his well-known name and his inherent ability to slide comfortably into any set or society, made him wholly irresistible. No one suspected him, because his frankness disarmed suspicion. His knowledge of human nature told him that the paradox of his being poor lent him a sort of romance, and he always began by telling new acquaintances that he was broke to the wide. In this way he struck the honest note of the men who disdain to convey false impressions. He was poor, but proud, and made himself so attractive and companionable that men were delighted to be put to great expense in order to entertain him,--and he wanted everything of the very best. His clothes were immaculate. His cigarettes were freshly rolled. When he drove a car it had to be of the best known make. He was a most fastidious reader and had once read a paper on modern poetry which had startled the Dons of his college. He contributed short satirical articles to the Isis from time to time which tickled the intellect of the more discriminating; and as a fresher had given a performance of Puck in one of the productions of the O.U.D.S., over which undergraduate