"I'm suffering from a rather sharp attack of Romanism, my dear fellow,
my Honored Parent has been at it again, Bev, and then, I dropped two
hundred pounds in Jermyn Street last night."
"Dropped it! Do you mean you lost it, or were you robbed?" inquired
Barnabas the Simple. Now when he said this, the Viscount stared at
him incredulously, but, meeting the clear gaze of the candid gray
eyes, he smiled all at once and shook his head.
"Gad!" he exclaimed, "what a strange fellow you are, Bev. And yet I
wouldn't have you altered, no, damme! you're too refreshing. You ask
me 'did I lose it, or was I robbed?' I answer you,--both, my dear
fellow. It was a case of sharps and flats, and--I was the flat."
"Ah,--you mean gambling, Dick?"
"Gambling, Bev,--at a hell in Jermyn Street."
"Two hundred pounds is a great deal of money to lose at cards," said
Barnabas, shaking his head gravely.
"Humph!" murmured the Viscount, busied upon his paper dart again,
"you should congratulate me, I think, that it was no more,--might
just as easily have been two thousand, you see, indeed I wonder it
wasn't. Egad! the more I think of it, the more fortunate I consider
myself.
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