They began to discuss terms, and Nick did not bargain.  Mr. Jerrold was to have an advance payment of twenty-five dollars, on account of fifty, for ten “lessons”; and he was to come to Nick’s house every evening to “supper” at half-past seven, remaining until half-past nine.  Hilliard was to be watched through the meal and corrected if he did anything wrong with his knife and fork, or his bread; and they were to have conversations and discussions covering various imagined emergencies.

Details were arranged, much to the satisfaction of Montagu Jerrold, whose real name was Herbert Higgins, and who had been a house decorator, employed—­and discharged—­by a small London firm.  Never had he been inside an Oxford college:  never had he seen the King—­except on a post card.  He returned joyously to his hotel, where, as Mr. Green was lying in wait, he had to part with most of his advance.  And Nick tramped home torn in mind, fearing instinctively that he was about to jump from the frying-pan of ignorance into a fire of vulgarity at which Angela would shudder.

Every night for a week the Dook appeared promptly in time for Nick’s substantial supper, which, by the way, he advised his host to transform into dinner.  “You simply can’t have ‘supper’ at half-past seven, my deah fellow.  It isn’t done! Dinner should be at eight, at earliest.  Our royalties prefer it at nine.  If you have supper it is after the theatre or opera, don’t you know.”  But when Nick stolidly refused to be such an “affected donkey” as to call his evening meal by another name to make it sweeter, Mr. Jerrold did not scorn the meal because it lacked refinement.

On the seventh night, however, Hilliard gave his noble instructor notice.

“I’m real sorry,” he remarked pleasantly, “but I can’t help it.  I’d rather go on as I am, and pin myself to a prickly pear, than shine in society by doing any of these monkey tricks you’ve been tryin’ to put me on to.  You say they’re ‘the thing’ and the newest dope and all that, and maybe they’re real nice for your sort, but I tell you they’re not for mine!  It seems to me you know a wonderful lot of fool things that ain’t so, and I can’t yoke up with ’em.  What’s more, I don’t mean to.  And now I see they’re the only cards you’ve got in your hand I don’t want any more dealt out to me—­Hook up my little finger when I come to grips with a coffee-cup!  No, thank you!  I see myself doin’ it or any other of the pussy-catisms you’ve been tryin’ to unload on me.  And you drop your ‘g’s’ just as bad as I do.  No, you’ll have to switch off, doc; and after to-night you can go your way and I’ll go mine, for there’s nothin’ doin’ here for you except this little roll of bills.  Good night, bud.  That’s all the trumps in the game!”

But the bills—­which were the trumps for Jerrold—­amounted to fifty dollars more than he had been promised for the whole course of lessons.  So he had not done badly after all.  And leaving Lucky Star City, which had no oil nor milk of human kindness for him, he drifted on somewhere else, as he will continue to drift until he stumbles into an ignominious grave.