"A well-turned leg," said Lady Randolph, "carries a man into high places; and Archie is hard-working, discreet, and ambitious. He will climb, mark me."
Obviously Jim was delighted to hear of his friend's success; but Betty's expression defied interpretation.
"It's queer," said Corrance, "but old Archie has always got what he wanted. Some fellows at Harrow called it luck. I don't believe in luck."
"I do," cried Betty. "So did Napoleon. Archie is lucky. Do you know that he has come into an aunt's fortune—about eight hundred a year—which ought to have gone to the eldest son—George? Archie won the old lady's heart, when he was a boy, by writing her a wonderful letter; George pinched her pug's tail, or threw stones at her cat, or something. Archie behaved nicely, and his letter, I believe, was a model."
"Well—I'm hanged!" exclaimed Jim. "Was it Aunt Deborah Samphire? It was—eh? Well, I remember that letter quite well. Mark dictated it, for a lark. And I contributed a word or two. She sent Archie a fiver when he got into the Sixth, and he came to us. Mark said that Aunt Deb should have a letter which would warm the cockles of her heart. It was a masterpiece."
"Um!" said Lord Randolph. "This young fellow is certainly a favourite of the Gods. Luck? Good Gad—who can doubt it? There was that scoundrel Crewkerne——"
He plunged into a story which began behind the counter of a haberdasher's and ended in the House of Lords.
"Crewkerne had the devil's own luck," Lord Randolph concluded; "and luck seems to sit beside young Samphire and you, my boy, but the other lad, Mark, the fellow with the eyes, is one of the unlucky ones. That first sermon of his now——"
"Which was also his last," said Betty.
"Eh—what?" Lord Randolph stared. "You don't mean that. He has tried again—surely?"