Algernon had this day lost ten times more than he could hope to be in a position to pay within ten years, at the least, if his father continued to argue the matter against Providence, and live.  He had lost, and might speedily expect to be posted in all good betting circles as something not pleasantly odoriferous for circles where there is no betting.  Nevertheless, the youth was surcharged with gaiety.  The soul of mingled chicken and wine illumined his cheeks and eyes.  He laughed and joked about the horse—­his horse, as he called Templemore—­and meeting Lord Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one of the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar.  The bet was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right hand down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a decision in Algernon’s favour.  Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot, and Algernon pocketed it exulting.  He had the idea that it was the first start in his making head against the flood.  The next instant he could have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed.  For, a soul of chicken and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back.  He went on saying, as he rushed forward alone:  “Never mind, Suckling.  Oh, hang it! put it in your pocket;” and the imperative necessity for talking, and fancying what was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time as if he had really acted according to the prompting of his wisdom.  It amazed him to see people sitting and listening.  The more he tried it, the more unendurable it became.  Those sitters and loungers appeared like absurd petrifactions to him.  If he abstained from activity for ever so short a term, he was tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said to himself, a man who has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and drunk thereto Champagne all day, until the popping of the corks has become as familiar as minute-guns, he can hardly be empty.  It was peculiar.  He stood, just for the sake of investigating the circumstance—­it was so extraordinary.  The music rose in a triumphant swell.  And now he was sure that he was not to be blamed for thinking this form of entertainment detestable.  How could people pretend to like it?  “Upon my honour!” he said aloud.  The hypocritical nonsense of pretending to like opera-music disgusted him.

“Where is it, Algy?” a friend of his and Suckling’s asked, with a languid laugh.

“Where’s what?”

“Your honour.”

“My honour?  Do you doubt my honour?” Algernon stared defiantly at the inoffensive little fellow.

“Not in the slightest.  Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my book.”

“Latters?  Ah, yes,” said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it.  “Fifty, or a hundred, is it?  I lost my book on the Downs.”