“Indeed I did,” was my reply; “on the contrary, I look upon him as one of the most fortunate men in existence.”
“Tut, tut! how can you say that, unless it be for the pure love of contradiction?—how long is it ago, I ask you, since he almost broke his neck riding the steeple-chase in Mullaghmoran?”
“Why, my dear fellow,” I rejoined, “I consider him most miraculously fortunate in not having broken his neck altogether on the occasion; he was warned before hand that the horse couldn’t possibly carry him over such a leap; and how he escaped so safely, will always remain a puzzle to me.”
“Well, I’ll give you another instance—the very morning he was to have fought Cornet Bagley, didn’t the police catch him, and get him bound over?”
“And devilish well for him they did, let me tell you, otherwise poor Charley would have been a case for the coroner before dinner time. The cornet’s a dead shot, and you know yourself that Charley couldn’t hit a turf clamp.”
“Didn’t he lose fifty pounds at hazard to George Byrne last winter in one night?”
“Sign’s on it, he booked himself against the bones for ever and a day as soon as he got up next morning, and by consequence may be expected to have something to leave to the heirs of his body, when he has them.”
“Well, talking of heirs: what have you to say to his matrimonial speculations, this last affair particularly—to lose such a girl and such a fortune by his own confounded blundering. You’ll not call that good fortune surely.” But our reminiscences of “Charley’s last,” thus recalled, were too much for mortal gravity to bear, and laughter, long, loud, and uproarious, cut short the argument, leaving me still however impressed with the belief, that, only for himself, Charley would be a second Fortunatus; at all events, that he could not justly announce himself a martyr to the frowns of the goddess.
In the first place, two uncles, five cousins, and an elder brother of his own, had all stood between him and the family property, worth three hundred a-year, or thereabouts, but with an alacrity and good nature quite exemplary to all uncles and cousins under similar circumstances, they all within a couple of years quitted the scene. Before the last of them was sodded, however, Charley took it into his head to borrow some money, on the chance of his inheritance, at twenty per cent. As the aforesaid chance was rather a good one, he was soon accommodated; but the wax on the bond was scarce cold when he was called to the joy of mourning at the funeral of his last impediment. Oh, if he had had but the luck to wait one week!—he was the most unfortunate dog in the world!
Still, matrimony might enable him to retrieve all, and accordingly to work he went, and wild work, sure enough, he made of it. His last affair in that line, however, being that which fairly convinced him of the unprofitable nature of his pursuit, and likewise being rather a good thing in its way, is the only one which I shall offer in illustration of Charley’s luck and Charley’s mode of managing it.