He was generally known in the world about him by a fond and familiar use of his Christian name.

To call him "Sir Richard" in these pages (except in the character of one of his servants) would be simply ridiculous.

When he lent his money, his horses, his house, and (sometimes, after unlucky friends had dropped to the lowest social depths) even his clothes, this general benefactor was known, in the best society and the worst society alike, as "Dick." He filled the hundred mouths of Rumor with his nickname, in the days when there was an opera in London, as the proprietor of the "Beauty-box." The ladies who occupied the box were all invited under the same circumstances.

They enjoyed operatic music; but their husbands and fathers were not rich enough to be able to gratify that expensive taste.

Dick's carriage called for them, and took them home again; and the beauties all agreed (if he ever married) that Mrs.Dick would be the most enviable woman on the face of the civilized earth.