The situation had in it enough spice for all of us.  We welcomed him with alacrity.  The cards were cut, and it fell to his Grace to deal, which he did very prettily, despite his heavy hands.  He drew Charles Fox, and they won steadily.  The conversation between deals was anywhere; on the virtue of Morello cherries for the gout, to which his Grace was already subject; on Mr. Fox’s Ariel, and why he had not carried Sandwich’s cup at Newmarket; on the advisability of putting three-year-olds on the track; in short, on a dozen small topics of the kind.  At length, when Comyn and I had lost some fifty pounds between us, Chartersea threw down the cards.

“My coach waits to-night, gentlemen,” said he, with some sort of an accent that did not escape us.  “It would give me the greatest pleasure and you will sup with me in Hanover Square.”

CHAPTER XXXV

IN WHICH MY LORD BALTIMORE APPEARS

His Grace’s offer was accepted with a readiness he could scarce have expected, and we all left the room in the midst of a buzz of comment.  We knew well that the matter was not so haphazard as it appeared, and on the way to Hanover Square Comyn more than once stepped on my toe, and I answered the pressure.  Our coats and canes were taken by the duke’s lackeys when we arrived.  We were shown over the house.  Until now —­so his Grace informed us—­it had not been changed since the time of the fourth duke, who, as we doubtless knew, had been an ardent supporter of the Hanoverian succession.  The rooms were high-panelled and furnished in the German style, as was the fashion when the Square was built.  But some were stripped and littered with scaffolding and plaster, new and costly marble mantels were replacing the wood, and an Italian of some renown was decorating the ceilings.  His Grace appeared to be at some pains that the significance of these improvements should not be lost upon us; was constantly appealing to Mr. Fox’s taste on this or that feature.  But those fishy eyes of his were so alert that we had not even opportunity to wink.  It was wholly patent, in brief, that the Duke of Chartersea meant to be married, and had brought Charles and Comyn hither with a purpose.  For me he would have put himself out not an inch had he not understood that my support came from those quarters.

He tempered off this exhibition by showing us a collection of pottery famous in England, that had belonged to the fifth duke, his father.  Every piece of it, by the way, afterwards brought an enormous sum at auction.  Supper was served in a warm little room of oak.  The game was from Derresley Manor, the duke’s Nottinghamshire seat, and the wine, so he told us, was some of fifty bottles of rare Chinon he had inherited.  Melted rubies it was indeed, of the sort which had quickened the blood of many a royal gathering at Blois and Amboise and Chenonceaux,—­the distilled peasant song of the Loire valley.  In it many a careworn clown had tasted the purer happiness of the lowly.  Our restraint gave way under its influence.  His Grace lost for the moment his deformities, and Mr. Fox made us laugh until our sides ached again.  His Lordship told many a capital yarn, and my own wit was afterwards said to be astonishing, though I can recall none of it to support the affirmation.