dreams he would remember and comprehend the deep meaning of only when
he was a man. Somehow all his thoughts were trooping round about a rich
and brilliant figure which was a sort of image standing to him for the
personality of his Most Sacred Majesty King Charles the Second--the
King who was not quite a King, though all England looked to him, and he
could lead it to good or evil.




_CHAPTER III_

_Sir Jeoffry Wildairs_


It was not common in those days for young gentlemen of quality to love
their books too dearly; in truth, men of all ranks and ages were given
rather to leaving learning and the effort to acquire it to those who
depended upon professions to gain their bread for them. Men of rank and
fortune had too many amusements which required no aid from books,
which, indeed, were not greatly the fashion. For country gentlemen
there was hunting, coursing, cock-fights, the exhilarating watching of
cudgelling bouts between yokels, besides visiting, and much eating and
drinking and smoking of tobacco while jovial, and sometimes not too
fastidious stories were told. When a man went up to town he had other
pleasures to fill his time, and whether he was a country gentleman
making his yearly visit or a fashionable rake and beau, his
entertainment was not usually derived from books, a man who spent much
time with them being indeed generally regarded as a milksop. But from
the time when he lay stretched upon his nursery floor and gazed at