out money in marble pillars and cornices, seeing that you can neither
eat such things, nor drink them, nor gamble with them? But the
Beargarden had the best wines--or thought that it had--and the easiest
chairs, and two billiard-tables than which nothing more perfect had
ever been made to stand upon legs. Hither Sir Felix wended on that
January afternoon as soon as he had his mother's cheque for £20 in his
pocket.

He found his special friend, Dolly Longestaffe, standing on the steps
with a cigar in his mouth, and gazing vacantly at the dull brick house
opposite. 'Going to dine here, Dolly?' said Sir Felix.

'I suppose I shall, because it's such a lot of trouble to go anywhere
else. I'm engaged somewhere, I know; but I'm not up to getting home
and dressing. By George! I don't know how fellows do that kind of
thing. I can't.'

'Going to hunt to-morrow?'

'Well, yes; but I don't suppose I shall. I was going to hunt every day
last week, but my fellow never would get me up in time. I can't tell
why it is that things are done in such a beastly way. Why shouldn't
fellows begin to hunt at two or three, so that a fellow needn't get up
in the middle of the night?'

'Because one can't ride by moonlight, Dolly.'

'It isn't moonlight at three. At any rate I can't get myself to Euston
Square by nine. I don't think that fellow of mine likes getting up
himself. He says he comes in and wakes me, but I never remember it.'