revolutionists, men found sufficient audacity to wear their own hair,

and powder was introduced as an extenuating circumstance.

In order to establish, before we pass on, an important period of

history, we should remark that the first blow in the war of wigs was

really struck by a Queen, Christina of Sweden, who wore man's clothes,

and had appeared in 1680, in her hair of golden brown, powdered, and

brushed up from her head. She had, besides, says Misson, a slight beard.

The Pope, on his part, by a bull of March 1694, had somewhat let down

the wig, by taking it from the heads of bishops and priests, and in

ordering churchmen to let their hair grow.

Lord David, then, did not wear a wig, and did wear cowhide boots. Such

great things made him a mark for public admiration. There was not a club

of which he was not the leader, not a boxing match in which he was not

desired as referee. The referee is the arbitrator.

He had drawn up the rules of several clubs in high life. He founded

several resorts of fashionable society, of which one, the Lady Guinea,

was still in existence in Pall Mall in 1772. The Lady Guinea was a club

in which all the youth of the peerage congregated. They gamed there. The

lowest stake allowed was a rouleau of fifty guineas, and there was never

less than 20,000 guineas on the table. By the side of each player was a

little stand on which to place his cup of tea, and a gilt bowl in which

to put the rouleaux of guineas. The players, like servants when cleaning

knives, wore leather sleeves to save their lace, breastplates of leather

to protect their ruffles, shades on their brows to shelter their eyes

315

The Man Who Laughs