To console the young swell, the winning parties declared that he was the paragon of players, and hoped he would soon have another game, and for a larger stake.
This latter remark seemed to contain a little more irony than Mr. Fumbleton could bear, so that he flamed into a passion on the instant, and high words arose.
Excited with wine, and infuriated to find he had been so egregiously duped, the swell gave vent to his feelings in unmeasured terms, calling Alick and his friends a parcel of scheming “black-legs,” until finding words would avail but little, they handled him roughly.
A general fight ensued among the partisans, and the last thing Augustus remembered in his cups was a general row, in which certain persons’ boot-toes came in sudden and violent concussion with certain parts of his person, and ejected him into the street, where he found himself on the following morning, without money, jewellery, and all high and dry in the mud.
Captain Jack laughed boisterously over what he had said. It was a capital joke, and served young Fumbleton right, for he had not been long from college, and was brimful of conceit and nonsense.
“I always make it a rule to look out for young collegians, when they are running wild ‘about town,’ as it is called, because they think they know everything. That £500, Alick Faulkner and I won, was the making of us.”
“The making of you! How?”
“Why, we were so hard-up, we should have had to go to house-breaking or something of that kind.”
“Well?”
“I knew a seedy ‘enemy’ of mine who had gone to house-breaking about that time. He wanted me to join him in the venture. But he little dreamed how much I hated him. I’ll tell you all about it one of these days; but as time is now short, I shall only say that I ‘split’ on him, and my respectable appearance in the witness-box got him transported for life. That’s how I generally pay off old scores with ‘lads’ who don’t act always on the square. After that I was appointed one of the Crown officers, and have been so ever since. I knew the chap at school, and hated him, and always swore to have him hung if I could; but let us go in here—here is a wine shop, let’s have a bottle together,” said Captain Jack, with a wicked smile.