The bet was registered, and five minutes passed in watching the timepiece on the mantel-shelf: all the young Baronet’s eagerness being now against the event he had been burning to hasten. The strokes rang out. With a smile he held out his broad palm, into which Carew duly dropped ten pieces.
“‘Tis the first bit of luck the fellow has brought me yet. Gad, I believe my luck has turned! Why the devil don’t he come, that I may ease him of a little of that superfluous wealth of his? I swear he gets more swollen day by day, while we grow lean—eh, Carew?—like the kine in the Bible. D—— him!”
“The water goes to the river, as the French say, in spite of all our dams,” sniggered Carew; “but as for me I am content that you should go on playing with Jennico so that I may back him; my purse has not been in such good condition for many a long day. Poor devil! How monstrous unfortunate his amours must still be! I only wish,” with a conscious wriggle, “he could give me the recipe.”
“Yet you have lost on him now,” retorted Beddoes, tapping his breast pocket, “and if you back him to-night, you lose on him again, I warn you. I am in the vein, I tell ye! But there is the quarter! Rot him, I believe he is going to rat after all! Bet you he don’t come till half-past, Carew. Fifty?”
“Done,” said Carew quietly, noting down the entry. “He is erratic, I grant you—he, he, he!—did you note me, Chevalier? But he has a taste for the table, though I believe he’d as soon lose as win, were it only for the sake of change. ’Tis about all he cares for—the dullest dog! Bet you there is not a man in the room has heard him laugh.”
“You won’t find any fool to take up that bet, Carew. Heigh-ho! I’d willingly accommodate myself with a little of his melancholy at the price.”
“Better look up a princess for yourself then, Jack,” said Carew; “perhaps the Chevalier here can give you an introduction to some other fascinating German Highness.”
“Won’t it do over here?” asked Beddoes, with a grin. “D’ye think I’d have a chance with Augusta? Twenty past! Let him keep away till the half-hour now. Zounds! ’twould be a mean trick if he failed me on my lucky night; though I don’t want him for ten minutes yet. He has fairly cleared me out; the team will have to go next if I don’t get back some of my I O U’s.”
“Why, it would be a very good thing for thee, Jack, if he played thee false. I say so though I should lose most damnably by it. Thy team will go, thy coaches will go, thy carts, thy grooms, thy dog, thy cat. Why, man, thou must lose—’tis as plain as the nose on Lady Maria’s face. And he must win, poor wretch, and I too, since I back him. Ask the Chevalier if it is not a text of truth all the world over: lucky at cards, unlucky in love. Never look so sulky, boy; ’tis providential compensation.”