Thereupon the waiter proceeded deliberately to gather up the glasses again, and was about to take them and the wine away, when I interposed with a proposal to pay.
“No,” said Fitz-Johnes fiercely; “I won’t hear of it; I’ll perish at the stake first. But if you really don’t mind lending me a sovereign until to-morrow—”
I said I should be most happy; and forthwith produced the coin, which Fitz-Johnes, having received it, flung disdainfully down upon the table with the exclamation:
“There, caitiff, is the lucre. Now, avaunt! begone! Thy bones are marrowless; and you have not a particle of speculation about you.”
The waiter, quite unmoved, took up the sovereign, laid down the change—which Fitz-Johnes promptly pocketed—and retired from the room, leaving us to discuss our wine in peace; which we did, I taking three glasses, and my companions disposing of the remainder.
Fitz-Johnes now became very communicative on the subject of his cousin Lady Mary; and finally the recollection came to him suddenly that she had sent him her miniature only a day or two before. This he proposed to show me, in order that I might pronounce an opinion as to the correctness of the likeness; but on instituting a search for it, he discovered—much to my relief, I must confess—that he had left it, with his purse, in the pocket of his other jacket.
The wine at length finished, we parted company at the door of the “Blue Posts;” I shaping a course homeward, and my new friends heading in the direction of the Hard, their uproarious laughter reaching my ear for some time after they had passed out of sight.