"I thought he was a sly beggar who 'd found a plum in the pie," said grandfather to me afterwards; "but it wasn't so--a mere blackleg, a scamp, a devourer of orphans. Break the bank? No, we didn't break the bank, but I broke his nose, and scattered his false teeth from one end of the Casino to the other, and dusted the steps with him afterwards!"
These and other things grandpapa said when he returned from Monte Carlo. I watched the daily journals as he directed, and so was not wholly unprepared for the fiasco which resulted from his trip to the Continent.
Indeed two startling items, both involving dear grandpapa, met my eye on the same morning, in the same copy of the Daily Telegraph. Under the "agony column" of that periodical I read as follows:--
"Wanted, address of one Daniel Dolphin. The same to Rogers, 'Eight Bells,' Chislehurst, will meet with a reward."
And elsewhere, under the heading of "Scene at Monte Carlo," occurred this paragraph:
"The English here are making things lively. Two adventurers with a new 'system' began to play last night and lost a thousand pounds at a sitting. One appears to have been a knave, the other a fool. When their resources were exhausted they came to blows, and the bigger man, presumed to be the capitalist, fell upon his companion and thrashed him unmercifully. It appears they had come in great state with a flourish of trumpets; but their 'system,' like most others, though doubtless pretty on paper, broke down at the tables. Both men have disappeared."
Here was cause for alarm if you will. I could not be sure that the persons mentioned were my dear grandfather and his companion, but somehow I always fancied that the matter related to them. I also dimly guessed why Mr. Rogers wanted grandpapa's address. No doubt Marie's affections had been trifled with, and the law possesses power to estimate the value of such broken promises in pounds, shillings, and pence.
I waited a fortnight without hearing a word from grandpapa. Then he suddenly came home, penniless and destitute of everything but the clothes on his back. He had grown thinner, and nearly a year younger, but his health appeared excellent, though his memory seemed to be impaired. Of course time was winging backwards at such a hideous rate with grandpapa that events, which only seemed of yesterday to me, already grew dim in his memory.
I sent for the tailor to come and measure him for some new clothes, and then begged he would tell me all that had happened. He began immediately about Paris, but I reminded him of Monte Carlo and Mr. Phil Montague. Then he grew enraged, and explained to me how he had treated that gentleman.
"I left the place next day, and slipped back to Paris. There I've had a pretty good time, but it's an expensive place. I kept a few hundreds up my sleeve, you know, and after I'd lost the 'thou.,' which simply filtered away in a few hours, I reckoned I'd get better money's worth with what was left. So I went to Paris and had a gaudy fortnight."