“‘Five’s the main,’ cried one of the croupiers, looking with as much indifference at the dice as they were sent spinning across the table from the hand of the caster as if they had been a couple of marbles shot from the bent knuckle of a schoolboy.
“‘A nick, by Love’s sugar-candy kiss!’ said the Earl.
“In a trice the counters were examined by one of the attendants, and an addition made to their numbers in the sum gained.
“With a flushed cheek and flashing eye the Marquis scraped the whole again upon the ‘In.’”
Again the Marquis—that is to say D’Orsay—wins; he wins again, and again! Again—again—again; never withdrawing his original stake or his winnings, but letting them lie there, growing and growing. Then—the bank was broken!
“‘By my coach and ’osses!’ exclaimed Sir Vincent Twist, a tall, well-made, strongly-marked, premature wrinkled, toothless—or, in the phraseology of the ring, all the front rails gone—badly-dressed individual.… ‘By my coach and ’osses! Fishey’s bank must be replenished!’”
This frankly unveracious history from which we have quoted is doubtless as near to truthfulness as many a ponderous volume based upon documentary evidence of undoubted authenticity—but that is not saying much.
At Crockford’s Lord Lamington, who wrote so understandingly of the dandies, will have met D’Orsay, with whom he was upon excellent terms: “Men did not slouch through life”; he writes, “and it was remarkable how highly they were appreciated by the crowd, not only of the upper but of the lower classes. I have frequently ridden down to Richmond with Count d’Orsay. A striking figure he was in his blue coat with gilt buttons, thrown well back to show the wide expanse of snowy shirt-front and buff waistcoat; his tight leathers and polished boots; his well-curled whiskers and handsome countenance; a wide-brimmed, glossy hat, spotless white gloves.”
Doubtless it was to the famous old Star and Garter that they rode down, the scene of many a high jink and of much merriment by night. A famous house with a history dating back to the dim age of the year 1738. A very unpretentious place at first, it was rebuilt upon a fairly fine scale in 1780, but did not prosper. It was a certain Christopher Crean, ex-chef to his Royal Highness the Duke of York, and after him his widow, who brought good luck to the house. In D’Orsay’s days it was owned by a Mr Joseph Ellis. The old building vanished in flames in 1870.
It must have been a delightful place at which to dine and spend the evening in those far-away D’Orsay days, and very pleasant the ride or drive down there through the country now covered with suburbia. Dukes and dandies, pretty women of some repute and of no repute, bright young bucks and hoary-headed old stagers, hawks and pigeons, the crême de la Bohême, all the world and other people’s wives, would be there; immense the popping of corks from bottles of champagne and claret and burgundy—the monarch of wines. Uproarious the joviality! They were gay dogs in those gay days!