He would often, and with considerable feeling, declare that any ordinary peer he could easily have become, but that being old Tulliwuddle's heir, by Gad! he didn't half like the job.
At present he was being tolerated or befriended by a small circle of acquaintances, and rapidly becoming a familiar figure to three or four tailors and half a dozen door-keepers at the stage entrances to divers Metropolitan theatres.

In the circle of acquaintances, the humorous sagacity of Essington struck him as the most astonishing thing he had ever known.

He felt, in fact, much like a village youth watching his first conjuring performance, and while the whim lasted (a period which Essington put down as probably six weeks) he would have gone the length of paying a bill or ordering a tie on his recommendation alone.
To-night the distinguished appearance and genial conversation of Essington's friend impressed him more than ever with the advantages of knowing so remarkable a personage.

A second bottle succeeded the first, and a third the second, the cordiality of the dinner growing all the while, till at last his lordship had laid aside the last traces of his national suspicion of even the most charming strangers.
"I say, Essington," he said, "I had meant to tell you about a devilish delicate dilemma I'm in.

I want your advice." "You have it," interrupted his host.