Horses under the charge of men in red jackets are pacing up and down St. James's Street. Cabmen on the stand are regaling with beer. Gentlemen with grooms behind them pass towards the park. Great dowager barouches roll along emblazoned with coronets, and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs. Wistful provincials gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and show their teeth, and look at the ladies in the carriages, and smoke and spit refreshingly round about. Policeman X slouches along the pavement. It is 5 o'clock, the noon in Pall Mall.

»Here's little Newcome coming,« says Mr. Horace Fogey. »He and the muffin-man generally make their appearance in public together.«

»Dashed little prig,« says Sir Thomas de Boots, »why the dash did they ever let him in here? If I hadn't been in India, by dash – he should have been black-balled twenty times over, by dash.« Only Sir Thomas used words far more terrific than dash, for this distinguished cavalry officer swore very freely.

»He amuses me; he's such a mischievous little devil,« says good-natured Charley Heavyside.

»It takes very little to amuse you,« remarks Fogey.

»You don't, Fogey,« answers Charley. »I know every one of your dem'd old stories, that are as old as my grandmother. How-dy-do, Barney? (Enter Barnes Newcome.) How are the Three per Cents., you little beggar? I wish you'd do me a bit of stiff; and just tell your father, if I may overdraw my account, I'll vote with him – hanged if I don't.«

Barnes orders absinthe-and-water, and drinks; Heavyside resuming his elegant raillery. »I say, Barney, your name's Barney, and you're a banker. You must be a little Jew, hey? Vell, how mosh vill you do my little pill for?«

»Do hee-haw in the House of Commons, Heavyside,« says the young man with a languid air. »That's your place; you're returned for it.« (Captain the Honourable Charles Heavyside is a member of the Legislature, and eminent in the House for asinine imitations which delight his own and confuse the other party.) »Don't bray here. I hate the shop out of shop hours.«

»Dash the little puppy,« growls Sir de Boots, swelling in his waistband.

»What do they say about the Russians in the City?« says Horace Fogey, who has been in the diplomatic service. »Has the fleet left Cronstadt, or has it not?«

»How should I know?« asks Barney. »Ain't it all in the evening paper?«

»That is very uncomfortable news from India, General,« resumes Fogey – »there's Lady Doddington's carriage; how well she looks! – that movement of Runjeet Singh on Peshawur; that fleet on the Irrawaddy. It looks doosid queer, let me tell you, and Penguin is not the man to be Governor-General of India in a time of difficulty.«

»And Hustler's not the man to be Commander-in-Chief; dashder old fool never lived; a dashed old psalm-singing, blundering old woman,« says Sir Thomas, who wanted the command himself.

»You ain't in the psalm-singing line, Sir Thomas?« says Mr. Barnes – »quite the contrary.« In fact, Sir de Boots in his youth used to sing with the Duke of York, and even against Captain Costigan, but was beaten by that superior bacchanalian artist.

Sir Thomas looks as if to ask what the dash is that to you? But wanting still to go to India again, and knowing how strong the Newcomes are in Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub, and swallows his wrath once more into his waistband.

»I've got an uncle come home from India – upon my word I have,« says Barnes Newcome. »That is why I am so exhausted. I am going to buy him a pair of gloves, number fourteen – and I want a tailor for him – not a young man's tailor. Fogey's tailor rather. I'd take my father's; but he has all his things made in the country – all – in the borough, you know – he's a public man.«

»Is Colonel Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, your uncle?« asks Sir Thomas de Boots.

»Yes. Will you come and meet him at dinner next Wednesday week, Sir Thomas? and, Fogey, you come; you know you like a good dinner. You don't know anything against my uncle, do you, Sir Thomas? Have I any Brahminical cousins? Need we be ashamed of him?«

»I tell you what, young man, if you were more like him it wouldn't hurt you. He's an odd man; they call him Don Quixote in India. I suppose you've read ›Don Quixote‹?«

»Never heard of it, upon my word; and why do you wish I should be more like him? I don't wish to be like him at all, thank you.«

»Why, because he's one of the bravest officers that ever lived,« roared out the old soldier; »because he's one of the kindest fellows; because he gives himself no dashed airs, although he has reason to be proud if he chose. That's why, Mr.