concluded the colonel, musing. Sometimes I think I was: but then
Caroline was so fond of me. That woman would never have seen me done:
never, I'm sure she wouldn't: at least, if she would, I'm deceived
in woman."

Any further revelations of his past life which Altamont might have
been disposed to confide to his honest comrade the chevalier, were
interrupted by a knocking at the outer door of their chambers; which,
when opened by Grady the servant, admitted no less a person than Sir
Francis Clavering into the presence of the two worthies.

"The governor, by Jove," cried Strong, regarding the arrival of his
patron with surprise. "What's brought you here?" growled Altamont,
looking sternly from under his heavy eyebrows at the baronet. "It's no
good, I warrant." And indeed, good very seldom brought Sir Francis
Clavering into that or any other place.

Whenever he came into Shepherd's Inn, it was money that brought the
unlucky baronet into those precincts: and there was commonly a
gentleman of the money-dealing world in waiting for him at Strong's
chambers, or at Campion's below; and a question of bills to negotiate
or to renew. Clavering was a man who had never looked his debts fairly
in the face, familiar as he had been with them all his life; as long
as he could renew a bill, his mind was easy regarding it; and he would
sign almost any thing for to-morrow, provided to-day could be left
unmolested. He was a man whom scarcely any amount of fortune could
have benefited permanently, and who was made to be ruined, to cheat
small tradesmen, to be the victim of astuter sharpers: to be niggardly
and reckless, and as destitute of honesty as the people who cheated
him, and a dupe, chiefly because he was too mean to be a successful