I
hear that D'Argenson plucked you for close on a thousand the other
day--"
"But I won fifteen hundred the same night, Dick."
"And lost all that, and more, to the Poodle later!"
"Why--one can't always win, Dick."
"Oh, Bev, my dear fellow, do you remember shaking your grave head at
me because I once dropped five hundred in one of the hells?"
"I fear I must have been very--young then, Dick!"
"And to-day, Bev, to-day you are a notorious gambler, and you sneer
at love! Gad! what a change is here! My dear fellow, what does it
all mean?"
Barnabas hesitated, and this history might have been very different
in the ending but, even as he met the Viscount's frank and anxious
look, the door was flung wide and Tressider, the thinnish, youngish
gentleman in sandy whiskers, rushed in, followed by the Marquis and
three or four other fine gentlemen, and, beholding the Viscount,
burst into a torrent of speech:
"Ha! Devenham! there you are,--back from the wilds, eh? Heard the
latest? No, I'll be shot if you have--none of you have, and I'm
bursting to tell it--positively exploding, damme if I'm not. It was
last night, at Crockford's you'll understand, and every one was
there--Skiffy, Apollo, the Poodle, Red Herrings, No-grow, the
Galloping Countryman and your obedient humble.
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