WRECKED IN PORT.
A SERIAL STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP."

BOOK III.
CHAPTER III. THE OPPORTUNITY.

MR. BOKENHAM did not improve in the
estimation either of the constituency of
Brocksopp, or of those in London who had
the guidance of electioneering matters in
the borough in the Liberal interest. The
aspiring candidate was tolerably amenable
at first, went down as often as the policy
of such a course was suggested to him, and
visited all the people whose names were on
the list with which he was supplied; though
his objectionable manner, and his evident
lack of real interest in the place and its
inhabitants, militated very much against
his success. But after a little time he
neglected even these slight means for
cultivating popularity. A young man, with an
excellent income, and with the prospect of
a very large fortune on his father's death,
has very little trouble in getting into such
society as would be most congenial to him,
more especially when that society is such
as is most affected by the classes which he
apes. Young Mr. Bokenham, whose chief
desire in life was, as his sharp-seeing keen-
witted old father said of him, to "sink the
shop," laid himself out especially for the
company of men of birth and position, and
he succeeded in hooking himself on to one
of the fastest and most raffish sets in London.
The fact that he was a novus homo,
and that his father was "in trade," which
had caused him to be held up to ridicule at
Eton, and had rendered men shy of knowing
him at Christchurch, had, he was delighted
to perceive, no such effect in the
great city. He began with a few acquaintances
picked up in public, but he speedily
enlarged and improved his connexion. The
majors, with the billiard-table brevet, the
captains, and the shabby, old bucks of
St. Alban's-place, with whom Tommy
Bokenham at first consorted, were soon
renounced for men of a widely different
stamp, so far as birth and breeding were
concerned, but with much the same tastes,
and more means and opportunities of
gratifying them. It is probable that Mr.
Bokenham owed his introduction among these
scions of the upper circles to a notion,
prevalent among a certain section of them, that
he might be induced to plunge into the
mysteries of the turf, and to bet largely,
even if he did not undertake a racing
establishment. But they were entirely wrong.
Young Tommy had not sufficient physical
go and pluck in him for anything that
required energy; he commanded his position
in the set in which, to his great delight, at
length he found himself, by giving elaborate
dinners, and occasionally lending money in
moderate amounts, in return for which he
was allowed to show himself in public in
the company of his noble acquaintances,
and was introduced by them to certain of
their male and female friends, the latter of
whom were especially frank and demonstrative
in their reception and. welcome of him.

The fascination of this kind of life, which
began to dawn on young Mr. Bokenham
almost concurrently with the idea of his
standing for the borough of Brocksopp,
soon proved to be incompatible with the
proper discharge of the duties required of
him as candidate. He found the necessity
for frequent visits to his intended constituents
becoming more and more of a
nuisance to him, and entirely declined a
suggestion which was made to the effect
that now, as the time of the election was so
near at hand, it would be advisable for him