Chapter I.
\'Nothing fills a child\'s mind like a large old mansion; better if un- or
partially occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the
county and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled
solitude of one, with my feelings at seven years old!\'--From Letters of
Charles Lamb.
To attempt a formal biography of Derrick Vaughan would be out of the
question, even though he and I have been more or less thrown together
since we were both in the nursery. But I have an odd sort of wish to note
down roughly just a few of my recollections of him, and to show how his
fortunes gradually developed, being perhaps stimulated to make the
attempt by certain irritating remarks which one overhears now often
enough at clubs or in drawing-rooms, or indeed wherever one goes.
"Derrick Vaughan," say these authorities of the world of small-talk, with
that delightful air of omniscience which invariably characterises them,
"why, he simply leapt into fame. He is one of the favourites of fortune.
Like Byron, he woke one morning and found himself famous."