"That can hardly be considered as a disadvantage," responded the baronet, airily, "since it adds a pleasant tinge of risk to our adventure which otherwise could not be termed hazardous, though what difference discovery would make I really fail to see."
"That is all very well for you," said Farrell, crossly, "but I want no more such beatings as he gave me in Ireland. I was in bed a week."
"You were suitably recompensed for your discomfort, Terence. Thanks to you, Bessie and her father accepted my proposition to come to London, turning a deaf ear to the impassioned explanations of the worthy but misguided Thomas."
"Oh, I 'm smart enough to accomplish the wishes of other people," replied Farrell, bitterly, "but I cannot seem to materially advance my own fortunes."
"Yet, I see little reason for your dissatisfaction. Finding myself in need of such a clever brain in London I brought you here ostensibly to read law. You have the benefit of my popularity in the social world. Surely for a young and unknown Irishman to be comparatively intimate with the Prince's own set is an honor? You don't know when you are well off, my young misanthrope."
"That is as it may be," said Farrell, not at all impressed by his patron's eulogy of the advantage afforded him by his present situation.
"But," said Sir Percival knowingly, "think what an education for a young and ambitious beau a close and personal study of George Brummell must of necessity be. By the way he spoke very highly of you at Sam Rogers's house only yesternight."
"Did he?" asked Farrell, eagerly. "May I ask you to repeat his words, Sir Percival?"
"To be sure, my boy," said the elder man, genially. "Let me see. If I recollect correctly, his exact words were, 'Young Farrell possesses great sartorial possibilities now in a state of gradual but progressive development, his innate refinement of taste being at the present time slightly obscured and handicapped by a provincial anarchism of selection due to youth's inevitable cheerfulness in the choice of color, and rather crude harmonizing of shade.' There is a tribute for you, Terence."
Farrell flushed with pleasure. Secretly ambitious to outshine even the great leader of fashion himself, he found his aspirations seriously interfered with by the limited income allowed him by his patron. It must not be thought, however, that Sir Percival was niggardly in his treatment of Farrell. In truth he was far more generous than ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have been under the same circumstances, but it could hardly be expected that the allowance given even by a free-handed patron to a clever protégé would suffice to dethrone such an all-powerful monarch of society as at this time was George Brummell, familiarly known in the circle he graced as the Beau. Nevertheless the handsome face and tasteful costumes of the young Irishman had begun to attract some little attention in London society, a circumstance that filled his heart with more than ordinary satisfaction, for Farrell was clear-headed enough to see that the vogue of Brummell, who was almost as renowned for wit and impertinent frankness as for dress, even in his association with Royalty itself, must sooner or later come to an end when by some characteristically insolent jest he should lose the favor of the Prince of Wales, now his close friend and patron. Some years later this very disaster apprehended by Farrell occurred, and when the impoverished and heartbroken Brummell was starving in a mean garret in Calais, it was the brilliant young Irishman, his pretensions now supported by the vast wealth of the ugly old widow whom he had meanwhile married, who reigned as first fop and dandy of the United Kingdom, until the summer Sunday morning came on which he went bravely to his death for slapping the face of Sir Dudley Brilbanke, who had made a slighting remark on beaus in general and Brummell in particular, which the successor to the unfortunate man then in exile felt bound to resent.