Charles went up to him quickly with both hands out, and said—
"We are so glad."
"It is very kind of you. God bless you; how did you know it?"
"We know nothing, my dear Marston, except that you are welcome. Now put me out of my pain."
"Why, well," said the other, "I don't know how it has happened: but I have got my double first."
Charles gave a wild cheer, and the others were all on him directly—Densil, Tiernay, Cuthbert, and all. Never was such a welcome; not one of them, save Charles, had ever seen him before, yet they welcomed him as an old friend.
"You have not been to Ranford, then?" said Charles.
"Why, no. I did not feel inclined for it after so much work. I must take it on my way back."
Lord Saltire's gout was better to-night, and he was downstairs. He proceeded to remark that, having been in——; well, he wouldn't shock Miss Corby by saying where—for a day or so, he had suddenly, through no merit of his own, got promoted back into purgatory. That, having fought against the blue devils, and come downstairs, for the sole purpose of making himself disagreeable, he had been rewarded, for that display of personal energy and self-sacrifice, by most unexpectedly meeting a son of his old friend, Jackdaw Marston. He begged to welcome his old friend's son, and to say that, by Jove, he was proud of him. His young friend's father had not been a brilliant scholar, as his young friend was; but had been one of the first whist-players in England. His young friend had turned his attention to scholastic honours, in preference to whist, which might or might not be a mistake: though he believed he was committing no breach of trust in saying that the position had been thrust on his young friend from pecuniary motives. Property had an infernal trick of deteriorating. His own property had not happened to deteriorate (none knew why, for he had given it every chance); but the property of his young friend's father having deteriorated in a confounded rapid sort of way, he must say that it was exceedingly creditable in his young friend to have made such a decided step towards bringing matters right again as he had.