And sure enough they had done a great deal in his behalf; for he had already sold out twenty thousand pounds, or one third of his entire fortune; but he was purposely kept in such an incessant whirl of excitement, pleasure, dissipation, and bustle, that he had no time for reflection.
One morning—it was about eleven o'clock—the young man awoke with aching head and feverish pulse, after the usual night's debauch; and it happened that none of his dear friends had yet arrived.
Egerton rang the bell for some white wine and soda-water to assuage the burning thirst which oppressed him; and when his livery-boy, or "tiger," appeared with the refreshing beverage, the young rake learnt that a lady was waiting to see him in the drawing-room.
"A lady!" exclaimed Egerton: "who the deuce can she be?"
"She is a stout, elderly lady, sir," said the tiger.
"And did she give no name?" inquired Egerton, beginning to suspect who his visitor was.
"No, sir," was the answer. "I assured her that you were not up yet, and that you never received any one at so early an hour; but she declared that you would see her; and I was obliged to show her into the drawing-room."
"Ah! it must be my aunt, then!" muttered Egerton to himself. "Bring me up some hot-water this minute, you young rascal:"—fashionable upstarts always vent their annoyances upon their servants;—"and then go and tell the lady that I will be with her in five minutes."
The tiger disappeared—returned with the hot-water—and then departed once more, to execute the latter portion of his master's orders.
Egerton felt truly wretched and ashamed of himself when he surveyed his pale cheeks and haggard eyes in the glass, and thought of the course which he had lately been pursuing. But then he remembered the flattery of his fashionable friends, and soothed his remorseful feelings by the idea that he was on intimate terms with all the "best men about town," was a member of Crockford's, and had the entrée of several families of distinction.