When Mr. Effingham pushed open the parlour-door and looked into the room on the afternoon in which he had conducted his banking operation with such signal success, the place was almost deserted. The large corner-boxes by the fire, where the professional gentlemen usually congregated, were empty; but at a table in the far end of the room were seated two men, at sight of whom Mr. Effingham's face brightened. They were flashily-dressed, raffish-looking men, smoking rank cigars, and busily engaged in comparing betting-books.
"Hollo!" said one of them, looking up at the noise made by the opening of the door; "I'm blessed if here ain't D'Ossay Butler! And the regular D'Ossay cut too--sprucer than ever; might pass for the Count himself, D'Ossay!"
"What's happened to the little cove now, I wonder?" said the other, a thin man with a shaved face and a tall hat, which he had great difficulty in keeping on his head; "what's happened to him now? Has he stood-in on a steeple-chase, or robbed a bank? Look at his togs! What a slap-up swell he is!"
Mr. Effingham received these compliments with great equanimity, sat down by his friends, and seeing their glasses empty, said: "Any lap? I'm game to stand anything you like to put a name to;" rang the bell for the waiter, and ordered three nines of brandy hot.
"What an out-and-out little cove it is!" repeated the first man with great admiration. "Well, tell us, D'Ossay, all about it. How did it come off? What was it?"
"Come off!" said Mr. Effingham; "what do you mean? Nothing's come off that I know of; at least nothing particular. You know that gentleman in the City that I told you of, Griffiths?" he asked, with a private wink at the man in the high hat.
"I know him fast enough," replied that worthy with a nod, partly confirmatory, partly to keep the tall hat on his head. "Did he pull through in that matter?"
"Pull through!" said Mr. Effingham; "he won a lot of money; and as I'd given him the office, and put him on a good thing, he said he'd behave handsome; and he didn't do amiss, considerin.'"
"What did he part with?" asked the first man.
"A tenner."