“What devil’s dodge are you planning there, you old sinner!” he exclaimed; “let’s look at ye!” he continued, seizing him by the chin, and turning his head so that the light fell upon his countenance; “bedad! them moustachios alter you surprising! Nobody that had not known ye as I’ve done, since I could handle a dice-box, and that was before I was into me teens, would recognise in Mr. Vondenthaler, the Belgian merchant, Le Roux the old croupier!”
“Leave him alone,” observed D’Almayne; “Le Roux’s a steady, sensible man, and one I have a great respect for; he knows his work, and does it well and quietly; and I’d back his long head against your noisy talent (for the ‘gift of the gab,’ as you term it, is a noisy talent and a dangerous one) any day, Captain.” Then, turning to Le Roux, he said—“The bank will re-open to-night, and we shall be there in force. Mind the Champagne’s better than the last batch. Let everything be in first-rate style, and spare no expense. Guillemard, you heard the rendezvous? Five o’clock, messieurs, au revoir.”
So saying, D’Almayne bowed with as much scrupulous politeness to the worshipful fraternity of ——— men of science he was quitting, as if he had been leaving the council-chamber of a prince. Calling a Hansom cab, this industrious and zealous young man drove to his west-end lodgings, and exchanging his suit of quiet black, in which he had dressed the man-of-business character he had been pleased to enact, for more butterfly garments, went down to a certain fashionable club, where he felt sure of meeting Lord Alfred Courtland, and found him accordingly, but by no means in the amiable, docile frame of mind in which he usually rejoiced. The hour preceding that at which D’Almayne entered the club had been spent by Lord Alfred in concocting, pursuant to Arthur Hazlehurst’s advice, a penitent letter to Alice Coverdale—a composition which had cost him much trouble and anxiety, and wherein he had endeavoured in some measure to justify himself, by shifting as much of the blame as he truthfully could on to the shoulders of Horace D’Almayne; and he had just closed and dispatched this accusatory epistle when, as though to overwhelm him with shame at such a betrayal of one who professed himself, and whom in great measure he still believed to be, his friend, his aspersed mentor seated himself opposite to him, and addressing him by his usual endearing epithet of “mon cher,” invited him to dine with him that day, and meet a few choice spirits at Blackwall.
“You’re very kind, but you really must excuse me,” was Lord Alfred’s reply. “I’ve been knocking about a good deal lately, and begin to want a little quiet.”
“Yes, I know,” was D’Almayne’s rejoinder; “such is always one’s morning theory—but one never puts it in practice; when eight o’clock comes, il faut diner! Seriously, however, I can’t let you off. I have asked two or three men to meet you, who are most anxious to make your acquaintance”—(this was strictly true),—“and who will be awfully savage if you don’t come.”
“Come—of course he’ll come, and so will I too, if anybody will ask me, and there’s a lark in hand—what does Milton say?—
‘A bird in hand is better far,
Than two that in the bushes are.’
Fine poem, Paradise Lost. By the way, did you ever hear my riddle on that head? ‘Why is the fact of the contents of a backgammon-board having been thrown out of the window like Milton’s chef-d’œuvre?’ Do you give it up? Because it’s a pair o’ dice lost.’ None so dusty that—eh? for a commoner like me? We poor devils that have to grind all day to procure our modest chop and our unassuming pint of London porter, can’t be expected to say such brilliant things as you noble swells, who have had nothing to do but cultivate your understandings ever since you came into the world with gold spoons in your mouths. But you have not told me what’s up yet.”
Here the speaker, who was none other than the facetious Jack Beaupeep, paused for want of breath, and D’Almayne interposed with a reply to his question—