“You no more toss with me, I have done with you; you too sharp for me.”

“What! are you going to cut me?  Are you going to warn me off your restaurant?”

Roars of laughter followed, and the lions of song gazed in admiration on the lord.

“I may be hard up,” cried the lord; “but I’m damned if I ever look hard up; do I, Lubi?”

“Since you turn up head when you like, why should you look hard up?”

“You want us to believe you are a ‘mug,’ Lubi, that’s about it, but it won’t do.  ‘Mugs’ are rare nowadays.  I don’t know where to go and look for them....  I say, Lubi,” and he whispered something in the restaurateur’s ear, “if you know of any knocking about, bring them down to my place; you shall stand in.”

“Damn me!  You take me for a pump, do you?  You get out!”

The genial lord roared the more, and assured Lubi he meant “mugs,” and offered to toss him for a sovereign.

“How jolly this is!” said Mike.  “I’m dying for a gamble; I feel as if I could play as I never played before.  I have all the cards in my mind’s eye.  By George!  I wish I could get hold of a ‘mug,’ I’d fleece him to the tune of five hundred before he knew where he was.  But look at that woman!  She’s not bad.”

“A great coarse creature like that!  I never could understand you....  Have you heard of Lily Young lately?”

Mike’s face fell.

“No,” he said, “I have not.  She is the only woman I ever loved.  I would sooner see her than the green cloth.  I really believe I love that girl.  Somehow I cannot forget her.”

“Well, come and see her to-day.  Take your eyes off that disgusting harlot.”

“No, not to-day,” he replied, without removing his eyes.  Five minutes after he said, “Very well, I will go.  I must see her.”

The waiter was called, the bill was paid, a hansom was hailed, and they were rolling westward.  In the pleasure of this little expedition, Mike’s rankling animosity was almost forgotten.  He said—­

“I love this drive west; I love to see London opening up, as it were, before the wheels of the hansom—­Trafalgar Square, the Clubs, Pall Mall, St. James’ Street, Piccadilly, the descent, and then the gracious ascent beneath the trees.  You see how I anticipate it all.”

“Do you remember that morning when Lady Helen committed suicide?  What did you think of my article?”

“I didn’t see it.  I should have liked to have written about it; but you said that I wouldn’t write feelingly.”

Mrs. Young hardly rose from her sofa; but she welcomed them in plaintive accents.  Lily showed less astonishment and pleasure at seeing him than Mike expected.  She was talking to a lady, who was subsequently discovered to be the wife of a strange fat man, who, in his character of Orientalist, squatted upon the lowest seat in the room, and wore a velvet turban on his head, a voluminous overcoat circulating about him.