“Never was I more glad to see a man,” he said.  “I’m damned if we scapegraces have not missed thy good-looking face.  Thou art a fine fellow, Roxholm—­and good-natured—­ay, and modest, too—­for all thy beauty and learning.  Many a man, with half thou hast, would wear grand Court airs to a rattle-pated rascal like Tom Tantillion.  Wilford does it—­and he is but a Viscount, and for all his straight nose and fine eyes but five feet ten.  Good Lord! he looks down on us who did not pass well at the University, like a cock on a dunghill.”

The Marquess laughed out heartily, having in his mind a lively picture of my Lord Wilford, whose magnificence of bearing he knew well.

“Art coming back, Roxholm?” asked Tom next.  “When does thy leave expire?”

“I am coming back,” Roxholm answered, “but I shall not long live a soldier’s life.  ’Tis but part of what I wish to do.”

“His Grace of Marlborough misses thee, I warrant,” said Tom. “’Tis often said he never loved a human thing on earth but John Churchill and his Duchess, but I swear he warmed to thee.”

“He did me honour, if ’tis true,” Roxholm said, “but I am not vain enough to believe it—­gracious as he has been.”

At that moment his volatile companion gave his arm a clutch and stopped their walk as if a sudden thought had seized him.

“Where wert thou going, Roxholm?” he asked.  “Lord, Lord, I was so glad to see thee, that I forgot.”

“What didst forget, Tom?”

Tom slapt his thigh hilariously.  “That I had an errand on hand.  A good joke, split me, Roxholm!  Come with me; I go to see the picture of a beauty, stole by the painter, who is always drunk, and with his clothes in pawn, and lives in a garret in Rag Lane.”

He was in the highest spirits over the adventure, and would drag Roxholm with him, telling him the story as they went.  The painter, who was plainly enough a drunken rapscallion fellow, in strolling about the country, getting his lodging and skin full of ale, now here, now there, by daubing Turks’ Heads, Foxes and Hounds, and Pigs and Whistles, as signs for rustic ale-houses, had seen ride by one day a young lady of such beauty that he had made a sketch of her from memory, and finding where she lived, had hung about in the park to get a glimpse of her again, and having succeeded, had made her portrait and brought it back to town, in the hope that some gentleman might be taken by its charms and buy it.

“He hath drunk himself down to his last groat, and will let it go for a song now,” said Tom.  “I would get there before any other fellow does.  Jack Wyse and Hal Langton both want it, but they have gamed their pockets empty, and wait till necessity forces him to lower his price to their means.  But an hour since I heard that he had pawned his breeches and lay in bed writing begging letters.  So now is the time to visit him.  It was in Gloucestershire he found her—­”