Sink or Swim? , Volume I

Arthur Vavasour had, as the reader has already learned, found little difficulty in persuading the kind-hearted, unsuspicious man whose colossal fortune had been made in the manufacturing districts, and who entertained exalted ideas (very convenient ones on this occasion) of the honour of a high-born English gentleman, that he, Arthur Vavasour, was entirely free from spot or blemish, or any such thing as regarded his future son-in-law's intimate acquaintance with John Beacham and his two yearlings.

Old Dub, as he was familiarly called, inhabited, during his annual sojourn in the country, a magnificent "mansion" on the western borders of Sandyshire. It was an abode that had once belonged to a Duke, and princely hospitality had been, during the residence of the aforesaid nobleman, for a lengthened period dispensed within the noble walls of Fairleigh Manor. His Grace, however, coming -- according to nineteenth-century slang -- "to grief," the place was degraded to the hammer, being purchased by the solvent Mr. Duberly for a sum that would have liquidated any debts save those of a Duke or a crowned head, but which was barely sufficient to satisfy the more clamorous creditors of the quondam owner of Fairleigh.