The Fall of Lord Barrymore

These are few social historians of those days who have not told of the / long and fierce struggle between those two famous bucks, Sir Charles / Tregellis and Lord Barrymore, for the Lordship of the Kingdom of St. / James, a struggle which divided the whole of fashionable London into two / opposing camps. It has been chronicled also how the peer retired / suddenly and the commoner resumed his great career without a rival. Only / here, however, one can read the real and remarkable reason for this / sudden eclipse of a star.

It was one morning in the days of this famous struggle that Sir Charles / Tregellis was performing his very complicated toilet, and Ambrose, his / valet, was helping him to attain that pitch of perfection which had long / gained him the reputation of being the best-dressed man in town. Suddenly / Sir Charles paused, his _coup d'archet_ half-executed, the final beauty / of his neck-cloth half-achieved, while he listened with surprise and / indignation upon his large, comely, fresh-complexioned face. Below, the / decorous hum of Jermyn Street had been broken by the sharp, staccato, / metallic beating of a doorknocker.