Mrs. Carey had been living in her husband's lodging for three weeks after her interview with the King, in the night before Aldershot. All the world was wild over the attempted revolution, the trial of the state prisoners and the escape of the King to France—all the world but Oswald Carey, who gave no thought to what passed on around him; he made deep calculations upon his "system" at the club between his draughts of "B. and S.," and played with other wrecked gamesters, until he lost his ready money, for his "system" worked to a charm conversely—his opponents infallibly won. Early in the morning he would stumble home to his lodgings cursing his luck.
On the morning of his wife's departure to join the King in France, she had informed him, as he sat at the breakfast-table, holding his aching head in one hand, that she was going to Paris to buy some new gowns, and that she would not be back for some time, but that during her absence her bankers would pay him $100 every week. He begged for more money, but his request was refused, and his wife coldly shook hands with him, and retired to her room to superintend her maid's packing. Oswald believed her story, and, finding that he could eat no breakfast, put on his top coat and crawled to the Turf and Jockey for a "pick-me-up." Fortified by this, he made up his mind that, since his "system" had failed because he had had always too small a capital to work with, he would allow his allowance to roll up at the bank for three weeks before he began play again.
Meanwhile he resolved to keep sober, and he spent his time trying to perfect his "system" and watching the other players at the club. His burning ambition was to win back his fortune from the sharpers who had fleeced him. He cursed himself all the while for his folly in playing before he had learned the game. He knew the game now well enough, he flattered himself; all day long he pondered on the combinations, and at night myriads of cards floated through his head. He dreamed that he held the bank, and that his old adversaries sat with pale faces opposite to him aghast at their losses.
One evening in April he appeared at the club and changed his accumulated dollars into chips. Fortune favored him that evening; his perfected "system" worked the right way. He walked home early the next morning, exhilarated and happy, with his pockets stuffed with bank-notes. He smoothed out and counted the crumpled bills when he arrived at his lodgings, and found that his pile had grown to $10,000, and for some days his dreams of success were fulfilled, and he was "cock of the walk" at the Turf and Jockey. He ordered champagne recklessly at dinner for the other men, though he drank little himself.
He even wrote a little note to his wife in Paris, inclosing a thousand-dollar bank-note to buy some bonnets and a gown.
"Nell will be surprised," he had said to himself, as he slipped the notes into the envelope. "By gad, when I get all my money back, I shall cut all this, and we will go to America on a ranch. Poor Nell! I haven't treated her right. I fear I have made a dreadful mess of it all."
He went to the gaming-table that evening with a light heart, and with other thoughts than his "system" in his mind—thoughts which had not been his for years.
It happened that a young Oxford undergraduate was at the table, and the young fellow had drank freely and had consumed a great deal of the "Golden Boy," as he affectionately termed the club champagne. As a consequence of these libations and of his utter ignorance of the game, he played recklessly, and won from the beginning, although he was surrounded by the most astute players in England. Poor Carey's cherished "system" was powerless against the boy's absurd play and tremendous run of luck, and his pile of chips melted away like snow in April, until he had not a dollar left. He rushed down to the office of the club to get the letter to his wife which he had put in the box, but the mail had been sent away. He succeeded in borrowing $50 upon his watch from the club steward, and returned to the table. But it was of no use; this soon followed the rest of his money. There were but two rules at the Turf and Jockey—"no I. O. U.'s were allowed at the card-table, and no one was permitted, under pain of expulsion from the club, to borrow or lend money." Carey had no alternative but to sit by the gaming-table and watch the play. He slept at the club on the sofa that night, and looked on at the play all the next day, drinking brandy all the while. The Oxford boy had left the club late in the night before, carrying most of the ready money of the establishment with him, and the broken gamblers played for but small stakes. The excitement of his losses and the constant draughts of brandy had made Carey wild and nervous. He paced to and fro in the billiard-room, racking his fuddled brain to find out a way for getting at ready money. His friends had long since ceased lending to him; his wife had repeatedly told him that she would not supply him with money to gamble with. Finally he remembered that she had told him that she had called upon the President to induce that wise ruler to restore him to his place in the Stamp and Sealing Wax. If he could only get that task, he would in a few weeks, with his hundred dollars' allowance a week and his salary, have a considerable sum to give his system another chance, taking care to avoid tipsy greenhorns this time. He felt too rickety to face the President until he had drank several more glasses of brandy. This done, he hailed a cab and drove straight to Buckingham Palace. Immediately he sent in his name by the policeman; he was shown into the President's private room, where the ruler of England was seated at a large desk looking over a heap of official papers. The President looked sharply and inquiringly at him.
"Mr. Oswald Carey?" he inquired, looking at the card which he held between his thumb and forefinger.
"Yes, sir," stammered Carey, who felt his hand shaking violently as he leaned against the President's desk. "I have come to shee about my reshtoration to Samp and Stealing-Wax Office—I beg pardon, I mean Steal and Sampling-Wax Office." He twirled the waxed end of his mustache with a trembling hand, and looked uneasily at the President, feeling that he had taken more brandy than was necessary to settle his nerves.