had not quite so sonorous a ring, but still with
a great deal of spending in it. In his whole
life the sultan had never grasped so much
money. His treasure seemed to him
inexhaustible. He would live largely, luxuriously he
thought, but then he would be adding to his
capital. Was there not the turf; might not he,
a young gentleman of fashion and fortune, make
a figure there, and win thousands by betting?
How much would it cost to have a stud of race-
horses? And play! there was play. Hitherto,
certainly, he had but rarely had a run of luck;
but Fortune favours the bold, and he would have
no need to distress himself about the loss of a
few paltry hundreds of francs. And, if the
worst came to the worst, was he not an artist?
Had he not a commanding genius? Most
commanding. Certainly, at no very distant date
the portals of the English Royal Academy must
open for his admission. But there would be
plenty of time to take up with painting again.
It was the last resource. To tell truth, he felt
slightly ashamed of the easel and maulstick, now
that he was an independent gentleman, with his
pocket full of money. After all, it was but a
base mechanical employment this painting. How
villanously the turpentine and megelp smelt.
How difficult it was to find subjects; what a
bore it was to have to make sketches. And
those troublesome models—they cost ever so
much money, and the colour merchant was
always dunning for his bill. Those envious ill-
conditioned fellows the critics, too, who made
impertinent observations in print for which, if
they got their deserts, they should be caned,
and who drew no distinction between a picture
painted by the son of a cobbler and one that
was the work of a descendant of the barons of
old.

Of course Edgar put up at the Ship when he
landed at Dover—the Lord Warden not being
then built— and although he had the largest
suite of apartments next to a Russian grand-
duke who had crossed with him, the Ship was
several sizes too small for the Sultan Greyfaunt.
He would have posted to London had not the
railway just been opened. He could never have
endured a vulgar stage-coach.

He had plenty of friends, and some few
distant connexions in London. It was known
that he was Madame de Kergolay's heir.
Nobody knew much about the old lady's
circumstances, nor did the sultan feel called upon to
enlighten society with any particularity. It
was noised abroad that he had inherited a large
fortune; nor did he take any special pains to
contradict the rumour. If people chose to
deceive themselves, why should they not be
deceived? A convenient train of reasoning,
which has been pursued in all countries, these
five thousand years about.

So where, when the sultan arrived in the
British metropolis, should his highness alight
but at Pomeroy's Hotel in Great Grand-street,
Grosvenor-square? He drove there straight from
the terminus, and was received with much
distinction. One had need be a distinguished
foreigner to be welcomed in Great Grand-street.
As a rule, Pomeroy (represented by a sharp
Swiss named Jean Baptiste Constant, the
successor to the original proprietor; he having
retired on a fortune) only took in princes; and,
equally as a rule, princes, when they came to
town, were taken by their couriers to
Pomeroy's. Mr. J. B. Constant (he was never
called Monsieur now, and was supposed to be
a naturalised British subject, and a staunch
Protestant, the which did not prevent his
entertaining the Sheikh of the Soudan, who was a
Mussulman, and the Abbeokuta Envoy, who was
black and a pagan, and was with difficulty
persuaded from celebrating his "grand custom"
over a footbath full of blood in the back
drawing-room; besides any stray Romanist or
Russo-Greek grandees who came that way)—Mr.
J. B. Constant owed much of the success which he
had hitherto enjoyed to his extended connexion
among the useful class of travelling servants
known as couriers, who, when out of an
engagement, or off duty, were always sure of a hearty
reception, a good cigar, and a glass of curaçao,
or other comforting stimulant in Pomeroy's
still-room. The recommendations of an
experienced member of the courier profession, one
Franz Stimm had been especially useful to Mr.
Constant, and he was grateful to him
accordingly.

Mr. Edgar Greyfaunt de Kergolay was
therefore, as was only due to so high and mighty a
prince, made much of at this patrician hostelry.
On his cards he called himself Greyfaunt de
Kergolay; and his name was surmounted by a
neatly engraved and prettily spiked coronet.
During the lifetime of his great-aunt, and in
Paris, he had affected a disdain for his foreign
lineage, and would own no blue blood but that
of the Greyfaunts of Lancashire; but now that
she was dead, and he had got her money, he
thought there was no harm in hinting that he
was the representative of a noble house from
beyond the sea. Perhaps he found the
Greyfaunts of Lancashire, like many other country
families as noble, somewhat at a discount in
London society, which, following the usual fashion,
interested itself with what was passing on the
extreme horizon in preference to that which was
going on beneath its very nose. At all events,
the lofty Edgar, when he was addressed as
Viscount, did not resent the error with any great
acrimony. His old companions called him
Greyfaunt; but many newly-found ones in
cosmopolitan and diplomatic circles, spoke to him and
asked him to dinner as De Kergolay. Under
that title he was entered in Mr. J. B. Constant's
books; and as De Kergolay he was inscribed,
much more legibly, and, indeed, indelibly, in
Mr. J. B. Constant's mind.

Thus, and in despite of his English face and
tongue, being accounted that which imperfectly
educated persons are apt to term a "foreign
swell," Edgar—you may call him, and I will
call him by either of his surnames indifferently
—was naturally introduced to the Pilgrims'
Club in Park-lane, at which, as everybody