“Why, of course, he knew all about it before,” said Thorne.
“Then, I should think, you might as well have kept the information to yourself.”
“No,” said Tom; “I thought there could be no harm in letting them see that there might be some suspicions of who did it, if any thing out of the way did happen to old Mendoza.”
“If you have a twinkling of suspicion that that square-shaved sinner in the corner is in your way at all, I’ll let day-light shine through him in the presence of his friends before you call say hair-trigger.”
“Griffin, dine with me to-day, will you, and we will have a scamper into the Camp after.”
“I shall be delighted,” said Griffin.
“Hasta luego, then—at three precisely,” and each took a different route.
“He is a jolly, frank fellow that,” said Thorne to himself. “I wonder what he is!”
“That’s the very man I wanted,” said Griffin. “Faith, I may know every body I care about now, and dine every day of the week for nothing.”
Griffin was one of those genteel adventurers that you find in every large community hanging on to the outskirts of society, who come from nobody knows where, and live nobody knows how; who have no profession except that of an idler, and no occupation except paying off their debts with promises; they never lose a bet; they often, very often, lose one game of billiards or ecarte, but never a rub; they never can remember to carry small change in their pockets; and they never do forget an invitation to dinner. They probably answer some good purpose in society—perhaps, that of teaching flats the sweet lessons of experience, and preparing them for the wiles and stratagems of the world: be this as it may, they fulfil, at least, one maxim of the word of Wisdom, for they neither toil nor spin; and they steadfastly practise the principle, that sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.