As regards success in card-playing, it commonly fell to Mrs. Lockhart and Lancaster. “And yet I may say, without vanity, that I was accounted a fair hand at it in
my earlier days,” Mr. Grant once remarked apologetically to his partner.
“Cards are not played where you have been living?” Marion suggested.
“No; at least I devoted myself to other games, and my Hoyle was forgotten.”
“I think cards are less popular in society than they used to be five-and-twenty years ago,” remarked Mrs. Lockhart.
“Oh, it is in many ways a different England from that old one,” Mr. Grant said, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “A great rage for balloons at that time, I recollect. And for boxing—there was the Prince of Wales boxing with Lord Hervey one night after the opera. Dueling, too; why, in 1786 ’twas almost a distinction for a man not to have fought a duel; the point of honor was much oftener vindicated than the point of the argument. No wonder; to be drunk at a certain hour of the day was accounted a mark of breeding among gentlemen. Charles Fox was a terrible fellow for drinking and dicing; used to see him at Watthier’s.”