‘Eh, dropping his tin, is he? And you ‘d rather save him, Crotty? All right and sportsmanlike,’ said his lordship, with a knowing wink, and walked on.
‘A very bad one, indeed, I fear,’ said Crotty, looking after him; ‘but I didn’t think him so heartless as that. Let us take a turn, and look out for Wycherley.’
Now, although I neither knew Wycherley nor his friend Crotty, I felt it a case where one might transgress a little on etiquette, and probably save a young man—he didn’t look twenty—from ruin; and so, without more ado, I accompanied my new acquaintance through the crowded salons, elbowing and pushing along amid the hundreds that thronged there. Crotty seemed to know almost every one of a certain class; and as he went, it was a perpetual ‘Comment ça va,’ prince, count, or baron; or, ‘How d’ye do, my lord?’ or, ‘Eh, Sir Thomas, you here?’ etc; when at length, at the side of a doorway leading into the supper-room, we came upon the Honourable Jack, with two ladies leaning upon his arms. One glance was enough; I saw they were the alderman’s daughters. Sir Peter himself, at a little distance off, was giving directions to the waiter for supper.
‘Eh, Crotty, what are you doing to-night?’ said Jack, with a triumphant look at his fair companions; ‘any mischief going forward, eh?’
‘Nothing half so dangerous as your doings,’ said Crotty, with a very arch smile; ‘have you seen Wycherley? Is he here?’
‘Can’t possibly say,’ yawned out Jack; then leaning over to me, he said in a whisper, ‘Is the Princess Von Hohenstauvenof in the rooms?’
‘I really don’t know; I ‘m quite a stranger.’
‘By Jove, if she is,’ said he, without paying any attention to my reply, ‘I ‘m floored, that’s all. Lady Maude Beverley has caught me already. I wish you ‘d keep the Deverington girls in talk, will you?’
‘You forget, perhaps, I have no acquaintance here.’
‘Oh yes, by Jove, so I did! Glorious fun you must have of it! What a pace I ‘d go along if I wasn’t known, eh! wouldn’t I?’