“More fool he! Vicars is a first-rate player, but confoundedly unlucky.”
“Be that as it may, they fixed on piquet as the game, and, if accounts be true, all the better for Darcy. They say he has beaten the best players in France.”
“And what is really the stake? One hears so many absurd versions of it.”
“The Ballydermot property.”
“The whole of it?”
“Every acre, with the demesne, house, plate, pictures, carriages, wine,—begad! I 'm not sure if the livery servants are not included,—against fifty thousand pounds. You know Drogheda has lent him a very large sum on a mortgage of that property already, and this will make the thing about double or quits.”
“Well, Heffernan,” cried the Knight, “are you making your book there? When you've quite finished, let me have a pinch of that excellent snuff of yours.”
“Why not try mine?” said Lord Drogheda, pushing a magnificently jewelled box, containing a miniature, across the table.
“'T would be a bad augury, my Lord,” said Darcy, laughing. “If I remember aright, you won this handsome box from the Duke de Richelieu.”
“Ah! you know that story, then?”