Characters
Hughie Erskine
The charming, penniless hero
A wonderfully good-looking young man with crisp brown hair and grey eyes, popular with everyone and, intellectually, 'not of much importance'. His father left him only a cavalry sword and a fifteen-volume history of the Peninsular War, and his attempts at business all fail. Generous and reckless, he gives his only sovereign to a beggar, is mortified to learn that the man is a millionaire, and is rewarded with the fortune that lets him marry.
Laura Merton
The beloved
The daughter of a retired Colonel, who adores Hughie; together they are 'the handsomest couple in London' and have not a penny between them. She consoles him when her father refuses an engagement, and gives him 'a charming scolding' for his extravagance on the day he gives away his sovereign. The Baron's wedding present is addressed to her as well as to Hughie.
Alan Trevor
The painter
Hughie's great friend, a strange, rough-looking man with a freckled face and a ragged red beard, but a real master whose pictures are eagerly sought after. He first liked Hughie for his looks and then for his generous nature. Witty and unsentimental about art, he calls rags romance, laughs loudly at Hughie's gift, and becomes best man at the wedding, where he coins the title's pun.
Baron Hausberg
The millionaire in rags
One of the richest men in Europe, who 'could buy all London tomorrow' and dines off gold plate. He buys all of Trevor's pictures and commissions a portrait of himself as a beggar, wearing an old suit of Trevor's from Spain. Hughie's pity delights him; he learns all about Hughie's affairs, sends a cheque for £10,000 'from an old beggar', and makes a speech at the wedding breakfast.
Colonel Merton
The practical father
Laura's father, a retired Colonel who 'had lost his temper and his digestion in India, and had never found either of them again'. He is very fond of Hughie but will not hear of an engagement, telling him to come back when he has ten thousand pounds of his own. The Baron's cheque meets his condition to the pound.
Monsieur Gustave Naudin
The Baron's messenger
An old gentleman with gold spectacles, grey hair and a slight French accent, who calls on Hughie at breakfast with a card announcing that he comes on behalf of Baron Hausberg. Hughie assumes he has come for an apology, but Naudin smiles, cuts short his stammered regrets, and hands over the sealed envelope that contains the wedding present.