Amongst others of the dispossessed, Charley Leicester, having retreated from room to room before the invaders, at last, fairly driven out, was fain to seek refuge in the garden. In this extremity he betook himself to a certain terrace-walk, where he trusted to find sunshine and quiet. Having, as he fondly imagined, secured these necessary ingredients to his happiness, he was proceeding to recruit exhausted nature with a mild cigar, when a footstep was heard approaching, and immediately afterwards the erect and portly form of _the_ De Grandeville hove in sight and bore down upon him. Now it must be known that these two gentlemen regarded each other with very different feelings--Leicester, albeit by no means given to discovering faults of character in his acquaintances, could not but perceive the absurd self-consequence and pompous pride which were so palpably displayed in De Grandeville’s every look and action, and while this revolted his good taste and produced in him a passive feeling of dislike, the style of conversation usually adopted by the redoubtable Marmaduke, which, however it might begin, invariably ended in some form of self-glorification, actively bored him. Accordingly, it was with anything but a feeling of satisfaction that he now witnessed his approach. De Grandeville, on the other hand, looked up to Leicester on account of his connection with the peerage, and knowing his popularity among the best set of men about town, regarded him as an oracle on all points of _etiquette_ and _bienséance_. Being, therefore, at that moment in the act of revolving in his anxious mind a most weighty matter on which he required good advice, Charley was the man of all others he most wished to meet with. Marching vigorously onward he soon reached the spot where, half-sitting, half-lying, on the broad top of a low stone balustrade, Leicester was ruminating over his cigar. Having halted immediately in front of his victim, De Grandeville raised his hand to his forehead in a military salute, which manouvre, acquired partly in jest, partly in earnest, had now become habitual to him.
“Ar--enjoying a weed? eh! Mr. Leicester?” he began. “ ’Pon my word, you’ve selected a most picturesque spot for your bivouac. If it’s not against the standing orders to smoke here, I’ll join you in a cigar, for--ar--to tell you the truth, I rather want five minutes’ conversation with you.”