“Why did he do that, sir?” I asked, in astonishment.

My uncle shrugged his shoulders.

“It was his humour,” said he.  “He walked into society through it, and that was better worth reaching than Jerusalem.  There’s Lord Petersham, the man with the beaky nose.  He always rises at six in the evening, and he has laid down the finest cellar of snuff in Europe.  It was he who ordered his valet to put half a dozen of sherry by his bed and call him the day after to-morrow.  He’s talking to Lord Panmure, who can take his six bottles of claret and argue with a bishop after it.  The lean man with the weak knees is General Scott who lives upon toast and water and has won 200,000 pounds at whist.  He is talking to young Lord Blandford who gave 1800 pounds for a Boccaccio the other day.  Evening, Dudley!”

“Evening, Tregellis!” An elderly, vacant-looking man had stopped before us and was looking me up and down.

“Some young cub Charlie Tregellis has caught in the country,” he murmured.  “He doesn’t look as if he would be much credit to him.  Been out of town, Tregellis?”

“For a few days.”

“Hem!” said the man, transferring his sleepy gaze to my uncle.  “He’s looking pretty bad.  He’ll be going into the country feet foremost some of these days if he doesn’t pull up!” He nodded, and passed on.

“You mustn’t look so mortified, nephew,” said my uncle, smiling.  “That’s old Lord Dudley, and he has a trick of thinking aloud.  People used to be offended, but they take no notice of him now.  It was only last week, when he was dining at Lord Elgin’s, that he apologized to the company for the shocking bad cooking.  He thought he was at his own table, you see.  It gives him a place of his own in society.  That’s Lord Harewood he has fastened on to now.  Harewood’s peculiarity is to mimic the Prince in everything.  One day the Prince hid his queue behind the collar of his coat, so Harewood cut his off, thinking that they were going out of fashion.  Here’s Lumley, the ugly man.  ‘L’homme laid’ they called him in Paris.  The other one is Lord Foley—­they call him No. 11, on account of his thin legs.”

“There is Mr. Brummell, sir,” said I.

“Yes, he’ll come to us presently.  That young man has certainly a future before him.  Do you observe the way in which he looks round the room from under his drooping eyelids, as though it were a condescension that he should have entered it?  Small conceits are intolerable, but when they are pushed to the uttermost they become respectable.  How do, George?”

“Have you heard about Vereker Merton?” asked Brummell, strolling up with one or two other exquisites at his heels.  “He has run away with his father’s woman-cook, and actually married her.”

“What did Lord Merton do?”

“He congratulated him warmly, and confessed that he had always underrated his intelligence.  He is to live with the young couple, and make a handsome allowance on condition that the bride sticks to her old duties.  By the way, there was a rumour that you were about to marry, Tregellis.”