Barnabas hesitated, and this history might have been very different in the ending but, even as he met the Viscount's frank and anxious look, the door was flung wide and Tressider, the thinnish, youngish gentleman in sandy whiskers, rushed in, followed by the Marquis and three or four other fine gentlemen, and, beholding the Viscount, burst into a torrent of speech:
"Ha! Devenham! there you are,—back from the wilds, eh? Heard the latest? No, I'll be shot if you have—none of you have, and I'm bursting to tell it—positively exploding, damme if I'm not. It was last night, at Crockford's you'll understand, and every one was there—Skiffy, Apollo, the Poodle, Red Herrings, No-grow, the Galloping Countryman and your obedient humble. One o'clock was striking as the game broke up, and there's Beverley yawning and waiting for his hat, d' ye see, when in comes the Golden Ball. 'Ha, Beverley!' says he, 'you gamble, they tell me?' 'Oh, now and then,' says Beverley. 'Why then,' says Golden Ball, 'you may have heard that I do a little that way, myself?' Now you mention it, I believe I have,' says Beverley. 'Ha!' says Golden Ball, winking at the rest of us, 'suppose we have a match, you and I—call your game.' 'Sir,' says Beverley, yawning again, 'it is past one o'clock, and I make it a rule never to play after one o'clock except for rather high stakes,' (Rather high stakes says he! and to the Golden Ball,—oh curse me!) 'Do you, begad!' says Golden Ball, purple in the face—'ha! you may have heard that I occasionally venture a hundred or so myself—whatever the hour! Waiter—cards!' 'Sir,' says Beverley, I've been playing ever since three o'clock this afternoon and I'm weary of cards.' 'Oh, just as you wish,' says Golden Ball, 'at battledore and shuttlecock I'm your man, or rolling the bones, or—' 'Dice, by all means!' says Beverley, yawning again. 'At how much a throw?' says Golden Ball, sitting down and rattling the box. 'Well,' says Beverley, 'a thousand, I think, should do to begin with!' ('A thou-sand,' says he, damme if he didn't!) Oh Gad, but you should have seen the Golden Ball, what with surprise and his cravat, I thought he'd choke—shoot me if I didn't! 'Done!' says he at last (for we were all round the table thick as flies you'll understand) —and to it they went, and in less than a quarter of an hour, Beverley had bubbled him of close on seven thousand! Quickest thing I ever saw, oh, curse me!"
"Oh, Bev," sighed the Viscount, under cover of the ensuing talk and laughter, "what a perfectly reckless fellow you are!"
"Why, you see, Dick," Barnabas answered, as Peterby re-entered with his hat and cloak, "a man can't always lose!"
"Beverley," said the Marquis, proffering his arm, "I have my chariot below; I thought we might drive round to the club together, you and Devenham and I, if you are ready?"
"Thank you, Marquis, yes, I'm quite ready."
Thus, with a Marquis on his right, and a Viscount on his left, and divers noble gentlemen in his train, Barnabas went forth to his triumph.
CHAPTER LXII
WHICH TELLS HOW BARNABAS TRIUMPHED IN SPITE OF ALL
Never had White's, that historic club, gathered beneath its roof a more distinguished company; dukes, royal and otherwise, elbow each other on the stairs; earls and marquises sit cheek by jowl; viscounts and baronets exchange snuff-boxes in corners, but one and all take due and reverent heed of the flattened revers and the innovation of the riband.