If not absolutely a nincompoop, Gerald Delaurier Gandelish, Esq., of Swellingham Mansions¹, Piccadilly, Undertherose Cottage, Sunningwater, Berks, and Horshundam Abbey, Miltshire, was undoubtedly² a type of the genus homo recently classified by a distinguished³ K.C. as soft-minded gentlemen. Strictly⁴ educated by a private clerical tutor under the eye of pious⁵ parents of limited worldly experience and unlimited⁶ prejudices, it was not to be expected that Gerry, upon their dying and leaving him in undisputed command of a handsome slice of the golden cheese of worldly wealth, should not immediately proceed to make ducks and drakes of it. He essayed to win a name upon the Turf; and when I remind you that, at a huge price, the youth became possessor of that remarkable⁸ Derby race-horse, Duffer, by Staggers out of Hansom Cab, from whom eighteen opponents cantered away in the Prince’s year of ’90, leaving the animal to finish the race at three lengths from the starting-post, I have said all. Gerry dabbled⁹ “considerable,” as our American relatives would say, in stocks, and started a café chantant on the open-air Parisian plan, which was frequented only by stray cats and London blacks, and has since been roofed in and turned into tea-rooms. Sundry¹⁰ other investments of Gerry’s resulted in the enrichment of several very shady persons, and a consequent, and very considerable, diminution¹¹ in the large stock of ready money with which Gerry had started his career. But though the edges of 82the slice of golden cheese had been a good deal

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