He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion.  The ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.  Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw, waste paper—­the ruins of the feast:  Fate’s irony meantime besetting him with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming charity in such places.

At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by preposterous wooden figures, a trifle less lightly attired than the ladies of the ballet, and as bold in the matter of leg as the female fashion of the period.

Algernon eyed the lumpy-headed, heavy-browed rascal with what disgust he had left in him, for one who came as an instrument of the Fates to help him to some poor refreshment.  Sedgett informed him that he had never had such fun in his life.

“Just ’fore matrimony,” he communicated in a dull whisper, “a fellow ought to see a bit o’ the world, I says—­don’t you, sir? and this has been rare sport, that it has!  Did ye find your purse, sir?  Never mind ‘bout that ther’ pound.  I’ll lend you another, if ye like.  How sh’ll it be?  Say the word.”

Algernon was meditating, apparently on a remote subject.  He nodded sharply.

“Yes.  Call at my chambers to-morrow.”

Another sovereign was transferred to him:  but Sedgett would not be shaken off.

“I just wanted t’ have a bit of a talk with you,” he spoke low.

“Hang it!  I haven’t eaten all day,” snapped the irritable young gentleman, fearful now of being seen in the rascal’s company.

“You come along to the jolliest booth—­I’ll show it to you,” said Sedgett, and lifted one leg in dancing attitude.  “Come along, sir:  the jolliest booth I ever was in, dang me if it ain’t!  Ale and music—­them’s my darlings!” the wretch vented his slang.  “And I must have a talk with you.  I’ll stick to you.  I’m social when I’m jolly, that I be:  and I don’t know a chap on these here downs.  Here’s the pint:  Is all square?  Am I t’ have the cash in cash counted down, I asks?  And is it to be before, or is it to be after, the ceremony?  There! bang out! say, yes or no.”

Algernon sent him to perdition with infinite heartiness, but he was dry, dispirited, and weak, and he walked on, Sedgett accompanying him.  He entered a booth, and partook of ale and ham, feeling that he was in the dregs of calamity.  Though the ale did some service in reviving, it did not cheer him, and he had a fit of moral objection to Sedgett’s discourse.

Sedgett took his bluntness as a matter to be endured for the honour of hob-a-nobbing with a gentleman.  Several times he recurred to the theme which he wanted, as he said, to have a talk upon.