They were just the number for a quiet rubber of whist; and for three successive years they sat down to one. The fourth came, and then their rubber was played with an open dummy; a fifth, and whist was no longer practicable; two could play only at cribbage, and cribbage was the game. But it was little more than the mockery of play. Their palsied hands could hardly hold, or their fading sight distinguish, the cards, while their torpid faculties made them doze between each deal.
At length came the LAST dinner; and the survivor of the twelve, upon whose head fourscore and ten winters had showered their snow, ate his solitary meal. It so chanced that it was in his house, and at his table, they had celebrated the first. In his cellar, too, had remained, for eight-and-fifty years, the bottle they had then uncorked, recorked, and which he was that day to uncork again. It stood beside him. With a feeble and reluctant grasp he took the “frail memorial” of a youthful vow; and for a moment memory was faithful to her office. She threw open the long vista of buried years; and his heart travelled through them all;—their lusty and blithesome spring—their bright and fervid summer—their ripe and temperate autumn—their chill, but not too frozen winter. He saw, as in a mirror, how, one by one, the laughing companions of that merry hour at Richmond, had dropped into eternity. He felt all the loneliness of his condition (for he had eschewed marriage, and in the veins of no living creature ran a drop of blood whose source was in his own); and as he drained the glass which he had filled, “to the memory of those who were gone,” the tears slowly trickled down the deep furrows of his aged face.
He had thus fulfilled one part of his vow, and he prepared himself to discharge the other, by sitting the usual number of hours at his desolate table. With a heavy heart he resigned himself to the gloom of his own thoughts—a lethargic sleep stole over him—his head fell upon his bosom—confused images crowded into his mind—he babbled to himself—was silent—and when his servant entered the room, alarmed by a noise which he heard, he found his master stretched upon the carpet at the foot of the easy-chair, out of which he had slipped in an apoplectic fit. He never spoke again, nor once opened his eyes, though the vital spark was not extinct till the following day. And this was the LAST DINNER.
THE DUKE’S DILEMMA.
A CHRONICLE OF NIESENSTEIN.
[MAGA. September 1853.]
The close of the theatrical year, which in France occurs in early spring, annually brings to Paris a throng of actors and actresses, the disorganised elements of provincial companies, who repair to the capital to contract engagements for the new season. Paris is the grand centre to which all dramatic stars converge—the great bazaar where managers recruit their troops for the summer campaign. In bad weather the mart for this human merchandise is at an obscure coffee-house near the Rue St Honoré; when the sun shines, the place of meeting is in the garden of the Palais Royal. There, pacing to and fro beneath the lime-trees, the high contracting parties pursue their negotiations and make their bargains. It is the theatrical Exchange, the histrionic Bourse. There the conversation and the company are alike curious. Many are the strange discussions and original anecdotes that there are heard; many the odd figures there paraded. Tragedians, comedians, singers, men and women, young and old, flock thither in quest of fortune and a good engagement. The threadbare coats of some say little in favour of recent success or present prosperity; but only hear them speak, and you are at once convinced that they have no need of broadcloth who are so amply covered with laurels. It is delightful to hear them talk of their triumphs, of the storms of applause, the rapturous bravos, the boundless enthusiasm, of the audiences they lately delighted. Their brows are oppressed with the weight of their bays. The south mourns their loss; if they go west, the north will be envious and inconsolable. As to themselves—north, south, east, or west—they care little to which point of the compass the breeze of their destiny may waft them. Thorough gypsies in their habits, accustomed to make the best of the passing hour, and to take small care for the future so long as the present is provided for, like soldiers they heed not the name of the town so long as the quarters be good.