‘My tragedy is, then, thy farce!’ he exclaimed.  ’Well, be it so!  I believe I shall come to song-writing again myself shortly-beneath the shield of Catnach I’ll a nation’s ballads frame.  I’ve spent my income in four months, and now I ’m living on my curricle.  I underlet it.  It ’s like trade—­it ’s as bad as poor old Harrington, by Jove!  But that isn’t the worst, Franko!’ Jack dropped his voice:  ’I believe I’m furiously loved by a poor country wench.’

‘Morals!’ was Franko’s most encouraging reproof.

‘Oh, I don’t think I’ve even kissed her,’ rejoined Raikes, who doubted because his imagination was vivid.  ’It ’s my intellect that dazzles her.  I ’ve got letters—­she calls me clever.  By Jove! since I gave up driving I’ve had thoughts of rushing down to her and making her mine in spite of home, family, fortune, friends, name, position—­everything!  I have, indeed.’

Franko looked naturally astonished at this amount of self-sacrifice.  ‘The Countess?’ he shrewdly suggested.

              ’I’d rather be my Polly’s prince,
               Than yon great lady’s errand-boy!’

Raikes burst into song.

He stretched out his hand, as if to discard all the great ladies who were passing.  By the strangest misfortune ever known, the direction taken by his fingers was toward a carriage wherein, beautifully smiling opposite an elaborately reverend gentleman of middle age, the Countess de Saldar was sitting.  This great lady is not to be blamed for deeming that her errand-boy was pointing her out vulgarly on a public promenade.  Ineffable disdain curled off her sweet olive visage.  She turned her head.

’I ‘ll go down to that girl to-night,’ said Raikes, with compressed passion.  And then he hurried Franko along to the bridge, where, behold, the Countess alighted with the gentleman, and walked beside him into the gardens.

‘Follow her,’ said Raikes, in agitation.  ’Do you see her? by yon long-tailed raven’s side?  Follow her, Franko!  See if he kisses her hand-anything! and meet me here in half an hour.  I’ll have evidence!’

Franko did not altogether like the office, but Raikes’ dinners, singular luck, and superiority in the encounter of puns, gave him the upper hand with his friend, and so Franko went.

Turning away from the last glimpse of his Countess, Raikes crossed the bridge, and had not strolled far beneath the bare branches of one of the long green walks, when he perceived a gentleman with two ladies leaning on him.

‘Now, there,’ moralized this youth; ’now, what do you say to that?  Do you call that fair?  He can’t be happy, and it’s not in nature for them to be satisfied.  And yet, if I went up and attempted to please them all by taking one away, the probabilities are that he would knock me down.  Such is life!  We won’t be made comfortable!’