Feckless, unwashed and charming, Trinity College law student Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield is an Irish-American with an English accent. Dreaming of dollars and ready women, he stumbles from public house to pawnbrokers, murmering delusive enticements in the ear of any girl who'll listen.

`Nathan Langriesh Johnson is the name. The United States my nation, From Maine to Florida. From New York to California. I am its loyal citizen. And before I am homeless out on the street, I am, without slipping and breaking my neck, going to wash my face in semi-cold water.’ Nathan Johnson, forty-eight and restless, began his career as a door-to-door lingerie salesman, reaching the top of the rag trade with a penthouse overlooking Manhattan. A `confirmed social climber’ in 1990s New York City, he looks back on his early struggles, indulging fantasies of life as a country squire on...