My Lord Duke

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Hornung Ernest William. My Lord Duke

CHAPTER I. THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY

CHAPTER II "HAPPY JACK"

CHAPTER III. A CHANCE LOST

CHAPTER IV. NOT IN THE PROGRAMME

CHAPTER V. WITH THE ELECT

CHAPTER VI. A NEW LEAF

CHAPTER VII. THE DUKE'S PROGRESS

CHAPTER VIII. THE OLD ADAM

CHAPTER IX. AN ANONYMOUS LETTER

CHAPTER X "DEAD NUTS"

CHAPTER XI. THE NIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH

CHAPTER XII. THE WRONG MAN

CHAPTER XIII. THE INTERREGNUM

CHAPTER XIV. JACK AND HIS MASTER

CHAPTER XV. END OF THE INTERREGNUM

CHAPTER XVI "LOVE THE GIFT"

CHAPTER XVII. AN ANTI-TOXINE

CHAPTER XVIII. HECKLING A MINISTER

CHAPTER XIX. THE CAT AND THE MOUSE

CHAPTER XX "LOVE THE DEBT"

CHAPTER XXI. THE BAR SINISTER

CHAPTER XXII. DE MORTUIS

Отрывок из книги

A dilettante in letters, a laggard in love, and a pedant in much of his speech, Claude Lafont was nevertheless possessed of certain graces of the heart and head which entitled him at all events to the kindly consideration of his friends. He had enthusiasm and some soul; he had an open hand and an essentially simple mind. These were the merits of the man. They were less evident than his foibles, which, indeed, continually obscured them. He would have been the better for one really bad fault: but nature had not salted him with a single vice.

Unpopular at Eton, he had found his feet perhaps a little too firmly at Oxford. There his hair had grown long and his views outrageous. Had the old Duke of St. Osmund's been in his right mind at the time, he would certainly have quitted it at the report of some of his grandson's contributions to the university debates. Claude, however, had the courage of his most extravagant opinions, and even at Oxford he was a man whom it was possible to respect. The era of Toynbee Hall and a gentlemanly, kid-gloved Socialism came a little later; there were other and intermediate phases, into which it is unnecessary to enter. Claude came through them all with two things, at least, as good as new: his ready enthusiasm and his excellent heart.

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Happy Jack was meantime apostrophising his pet.

"Ah! but you was with me when that there gentleman found me, wasn't you, Livingstone? You should tell the other gentleman about that. We never thought we was a Dook, did we? We thought ourselves a blooming ordinary common man. My colonial oath, and so we are! But you recollect that last bu'st of ours, Livingstone? I mean the time we went to knock down the thirty-one pound cheque what never got knocked down properly at all. We had a rare thirst on us – "

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