“That’s a proof,” says Roundhand, “that Tit’s diamond is worth at least thirty.”  And we all laughed, and agreed it was.

Now I must confess that all these praises, and the respect that wag paid me, turned my head a little; and as all the chaps said I must have a black satin stock to set the stone off, was fool enough to buy a stock that cost me five-and-twenty shillings, at Ludlam’s in Piccadilly:  for Gus said I must go to the best place, to be sure, and have none of our cheap and common East End stuff.  I might have had one for sixteen and six in Cheapside, every whit as good; but when a young lad becomes vain, and wants to be fashionable, you see he can’t help being extravagant.

Our director, Mr. Brough, did not fail to hear of the haunch of venison business, and my relationship with Lady Drum and the Right Honourable Edmund Preston:  only Abednego, who told him, said I was her Ladyship’s first cousin; and this made Brough think more of me, and no worse than before.

Mr. B. was, as everybody knows, Member of Parliament for Rottenburgh; and being considered one of the richest men in the City of London, used to receive all the great people of the land at his villa at Fulham; and we often read in the papers of the rare doings going on there.

Well, the pin certainly worked wonders:  for not content merely with making me a present of a ride in a countess’s carriage, of a haunch of venison and two baskets of fruit, and the dinner at Roundhand’s above described, my diamond had other honours in store for me, and procured me the honour of an invitation to the house of our director, Mr. Brough.

Once a year, in June, that honourable gent gave a grand ball at his house at Fulham; and by the accounts of the entertainment brought back by one or two of our chaps who had been invited, it was one of the most magnificent things to be seen about London.  You saw Members of Parliament there as thick as peas in July, lords and ladies without end.  There was everything and everybody of the tip-top sort; and I have heard that Mr. Gunter, of Berkeley Square, supplied the ices, supper, and footmen,—­though of the latter Brough kept a plenty, but not enough to serve the host of people who came to him.  The party, it must be remembered, was Mrs.  Brough’s party, not the gentleman’s,—­he being in the Dissenting way, would scarcely sanction any entertainments of the kind:  but he told his City friends that his lady governed him in everything; and it was generally observed that most of them would allow their daughters to go to the ball if asked, on account of the immense number of the nobility which our director assembled together:  Mrs. Roundhand, I know, for one, would have given one of her ears to go; but, as I have said before, nothing would induce Brough to ask her.