“And does he indeed love money so well?”

“Second to his wife, or men do him great injustice.  But though they laugh and sneer at him, I misdoubt me if he loves wealth better than his traducers; only he keeps a firmer grip upon it, having indeed no taste for vulgar dissipation.  Why, even as a youth he was mighty prudent.”

Here Lord Claud began to laugh, as though tickled by some memory; and on being questioned further, he told Tom the tale.

“You must know that John Churchill was a marvellous pretty fellow, with just the same languid grace of bearing that he has kept all his life; and of which you may judge the effect yourself, good Tom, ere many weeks be passed.  He was a youth about the court of Charles the Second, and the Duchess of Cleveland took notice of the handsome, witty lad, and sometimes had him in her rooms to amuse her.  Once they so chanced to be there together, when the steps of the King were heard approaching; and as His Majesty was like to think evil of a matter where no evil was, the Duchess was sore put to it, and looked so affrighted, that young Churchill gallantly sprang from the window, at the risk of breaking his leg if not his neck.  The Duchess sent him a present of five thousand pounds the next day; and what does the lad do?  Most of his sort would have squandered it at play in a week; but Johnny Churchill was of a different kidney.  He goes and purchases with it an annuity; so that come what may, he may never be left quite destitute in his old age!”

And Lord Claud again burst into a hearty laugh, in which Tom now joined.

They were now approaching a narrow street hard by the Haymarket, and his companion knocked at a lowly door, which was opened by a sombre-looking man in a shabby suit of clothes.

“Is your master within?” asked Lord Claud, who seemed known to all the world; and the next minute he was striding up the stairs, two steps at a time; Tom following, and marvelling much at the darkness of the humble abode, and at Lord Claud’s purpose in coming.

A door on the second floor was thrown open, and Lord Claud stepped gaily in.

“Ha, Master Addison,” he cried, “I have come to offer to you my tardy congratulations for that yet more tardy recognition of merit which has been your portion at last!  And so the great ones of the land have been forced to come beseeching in person?  Ha! ha! that is very good.  And may my friend here—­young Esquire Tufton, of Gablethorpe, in the county of Essex—­have the privilege of hearing some of those wonderful lines which are to take the country by storm?  Come, Master Addison, you know that I am a lover of good metre and fine sentiment.  The words must needs be tingling in your ears, and lying hot upon your tongue.  Let us hear the roll of them, and I warrant that all London town shall soon be in a ferment to hear them, too!”