“At your service. I play all games.”
“Is he a whister?” repeated the Colonel. “Ask Harry Greville, ask Tom Newenham, what they say of him at Grahams? Trafford, my boy, you may possibly give him a hint about gray hackles, but I 'll be shot if you do about the odd trick.”
“If you 'll come over to my room, Sir Brook, we 'll have a rubber, and I 'll give orders to have my tax-cart ready for us by daybreak,” said Trafford; and, Fossbrooke promising to be with him so soon as he had given his servant his orders, they parted.
“And are you as equal to this sitting up all night as you used to be, Fossbrooke?” asked the Colonel.
“I don't smoke as many cigars as formerly, and I am a little more choice about my tobacco. I avoid mulled port, and take weak brandy-and-water; and I believe in all other respects I 'm pretty much where I was when we met last,—I think it was at Ceylon?”
“I wish I could say as much for myself. You are talking of thirty-four years ago.”
“My secret against growing old is to do a little of everything. It keeps the sympathies wider, makes a man more accessible to other men, and keeps him from dwelling too much on himself. But tell me about my young companion; is he one of Sir Hugh's family?”
“His second son; not unlike to be his eldest, for George has gone to Madeira with very little prospect of recovery. This is a fine lad; a little wild, a little careless of money, but the very soul of honor and right-mindedness. They sent him to me as a sort of incurable, but I have nothing but good to say of him.”
“There 'a great promise in a fellow when he can be a scamp and a man of honor. When dissipations do not degrade and excesses do not corrupt a man, there is a grand nature ever beneath.”
“Don't tell him that, Fossbrooke,” said the Colonel, laughing.