Hardly had the boat left Boulogne harbour than he ran against a man to whom he had lost a bet--or two--which he had never paid. A bookmaker. There were three or four items outstanding against him in that particular book when the Viscount Sherrington--as his lordship then was--encountered its owner in the ring at Doncaster, and expressed a desire to once more back his fancy. The bookmaker would have none of him until the Viscount protested, with many oaths, that if he lost he would not only pay that particular bet, but all else he owed. But although he lost he did not pay. Whereupon the bookmaker took an early opportunity to inform him that wherever and whenever he met him he would favour him with his candid opinion of his character. The average declaration of the kind is merely a figure of speech--or many gentlemen, who are now of the elect, would have to peep round every corner before they turned into a street. It was more than fifteen years since they had met, and during five of those years his lordship had been a penitent of quite exceptional strength. In the case of any other man there would probably have been a stare, a muttering beneath the breath, and then an end. But his lordship was not like any other man; his luck was his own. That bookmaker had a most aggressive memory, and he had been drinking. So when he perceived who it was who had all but trodden on his toe he addressed him much above a whisper. 'What, yer? Slippery?' 'Slippery' was the nickname by which his lordship had been known in certain circles once upon a time, but was not a style of address at all suited to a person of pronounced piety who had just emerged from prolonged cloistral seclusion. Then and there, in the presence of quite a number of persons, that bookmaker gave utterance to his loud-voiced opinion of the man who had made that bet with him more than fifteen years before. The Marquis set foot on his native soil with a distinct feeling of depression. If he was going, to have many encounters of that kind, better, after all, the religious life. In the cloister self-respect is an offence, and self-abasement the order of the day. It is different in the world. There men dislike to be kicked in public, nor do they even wish to have people informed that they deserve a kicking. In that respect, if in no other, his lordship was one of the crowd. So, to raise his spirits, when he reached town he had a good dinner, and a large quantity of wine. The result, again, was neither what he expected nor desired. Seeking that feeling of conviviality which should follow a feast, he got indigestion instead. As he paid the reckoning he was painfully conscious that if the waiter would only include a couple of liver pills with the change he would do him a genuine service.