"Good day, Dick! 'Tis a spoilt child you have here!"
"Ay. He is but now escaped from his nurse."
"Splendid! Come, John, you shall walk with us, and we'll confound fat Betty!" He slipped his arm through Richard's as he spoke. "Come, Dick! There's a deal I have to say to you." He grimaced ruefully.
The child ran on ahead towards the woods, a great bull-mastiff at his heels.
"What's to do now?" asked Richard, looking round into the mobile, dissipated countenance.
"The devil's in it this time, and no mistake," answered his lordship with a rueful shake of his head.
"Debts?"
"Lord, yes! I was at Delaby's last night, and the stakes were high. Altogether I've lost about three thousand—counting what I owe Carew. And devil take me an I know where 'tis to come from! Here's Tracy turned saint and swears he'll see me damned before he hands me another penny. I doubt he means it, too."
Tracy was the Duke. Richard smiled a little cynically; he had already had to lend his Grace a thousand guineas to pay off some "trifling debt."
"He means it right enough. I believe it would puzzle him to find it."