“Not that I'd give sixpence to know every syllable of the whole transaction,” said Scaresby. “A man that has passed, as I have, the last twenty-five years of his life between Rome, Florence, and Naples, has devilish little to learn of what the world calls scandal.”
“I suppose you must indeed possess a wide experience,” said Harcourt.
“Not a man in Europe, sir, could tell you as many dark passages of good society! I kept a kind of book once,—a record of fashionable delinquencies; but I had to give it up. It took me half my day to chronicle even the passing events; and then my memory grew so retentive by practice, I did n't want the reference, but could give you date, and name, and place for every incident that has scandalized the world for the last quarter of the century.”
“And do you still possess this wonderful gift, Major?”
“Pretty well; not, perhaps, to the same extent I once did. You see, Colonel Harcourt,”—here his voice became low and confidential,—“some twenty, or indeed fifteen years back, it was only persons of actual condition that permitted themselves the liberty to do these things; but, hang it, sir! now you have your middle-class folk as profligate as their betters. Jones, or Smith, or Thompson runs away with his neighbor's wife, cheats at cards, and forges his friend's name, just as if he had the best blood in his veins, and fourteen quarterings on his escutcheon. What memory, then, I ask you, could retain all the shortcomings of these people?”
“But I 'd really not trouble my head with such ignoble delinquents,” said Harcourt.
“Nor do I, sir, save when, as will sometimes happen, they have a footing, with one leg at least, in good society. For, in the present state of the world, a woman with a pretty face, and a man with a knowledge of horseflesh, may move in any circle they please.”
“You're a severe censor of the age we live in, I see,” said Harcourt, smiling. “At the same time, the offences could scarcely give you much uneasiness, or you 'd not take up your residence where they most abound.”
“If you want to destroy tigers, you must frequent the jungle,” said Scaresby, with one of his heartiest laughs.
“Say, rather, if you have the vulture's appetite, you must go where there is carrion!” cried Glencore, with a voice to which passion lent a savage vehemence.