From that day Lord Lofty became an altered man. He was no longer the free, dashing, gallant young nobleman whose handsome exterior and high-bred manners endeared him to the fair sex, and whose superiority both mental and personal had entitled him to the rank of viceroy in the world of fashion, subject only to those two mighty monarchs, Douro and Ellrington. Seldom now was either ballroom, race ground, parliament house, rotunda, or ring honoured with his presence. Day and night he immersed himself in the solitude of his study and gave access to none but my brother, who urged him unrelentingly to the completion of the task which he had assigned him. Sometimes, indeed, the unhappy gull ventured forth to his old haunts, but so changed was he become in dress, language, and behaviour as scarcely to be recognised by his most intimate friends. A shabby black coat was generally wrapped round him; shoes trodden down at the heels garnished his feet; and the fair hair which formerly was his greatest pride, and which he usually wore arranged in clustering curls, now hung neglected in elf-locks round a countenance that for consumptive paleness and attenuation might have been envied by the veriest tea-taster in existence. His conversation was in unison with his appearance, whining, sickly, pedantic, and filled with that disgusting species of affectation peculiar to literary coxcombs. The consequence of this was that those who had been accustomed to consider his acquaintance as an honour and a matter of boasting now grew ashamed to be seen in company with him. When he entered a drawing-room the ladies turned aside their heads, and the gentlemen regarded him with a glance of undisguised contempt. Not a hand was stretched out to welcome him; not a voice repeated his name except in atone of derision. These things, however, he neither saw nor regarded. Fenced by a triple shield of self-conceit, the scorn of women and the disgust of men moved him no more than hailstones would a rock. After some months of incessant labour he at length one evening announced to the marquis that his work was completed. ‘Wait till to-morrow, Fred,’ replied that faithful friend. ‘I will then accompany you to Sergeant Tree’s, and you shall taste the first sweets of authorship.’