If, therefore, he were in all other respects
eligible, I can't see that his poverty would be an objection to weigh for
one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has been, like many young men
of the highest rank, too much given up to athletic sports--to that society
which constitutes the aristocracy of the ring and the turf, and all that
kind of thing. You see, I am putting all the worst points first. But I have
known so many young men in my day, after a madcap career of a few years
among prizefighters, wrestlers, and jockeys--learning their slang and
affecting their manners--take up and cultivate the graces and the
decencies. There was poor dear Newgate, many degrees lower in that kind of
frolic, who, when he grew tired of it, became one of the most elegant and
accomplished men in the House of Peers. Poor Newgate, he's gone, too! I
could reckon up fifty of my early friends who all began like Dudley, and
all turned out, more or less, like Newgate.'
At this moment came a knock at the door, and Dudley put in his head most
inopportunely for the vision of his future graces and accomplishments.
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