"This is his humour," said my guide. "Play is his passion; it is the one thing that he lives for; he has wasted and ruined his own estate, which will be transmitted to his successor as bare as the back of my hand; and now he is wasting the wealth of Potosi and the diamonds of Golconda. He would waste the whole world if he could."
"Why does he entertain such a crew?"
"It is his humour. He seems to delight in observing the wickedness of the world. He sits and looks on; he encourages and stimulates, and his face grows colder and his eyes harder. This man is not possessed of a devil. He is himself the Great Devil—the Prince of Iniquity."
So I had learned all that I wanted to know. It was now quite certain that we were within a short distance from the end. The lands and houses in the market would find a purchaser; the fleet and the business would then be sold. What next?
The day after this experience in the life of a rake I paid a visit for the first and only time to St. James Park in the afternoon. It was, I remember, a cold but clear and bright day in January. At the gates stood a crowd of lacqueys and fellows waiting for their ladies, and stamping on the ground to keep off the cold. Within, a goodly company walked briskly up and down. They were the great people of London whom I saw here. While I looked on admiring the dresses of the ladies and the extravagances of the gentlemen, who seemed to vie with each other in calling attention to themselves by their dress and by their gestures, there passed me, walking alone, a lady whom at first I did not recognise. She started, however, and smartly tapped my hand with her fan—she carried the fan although it was winter, just as the beaux dangled their canes from their wrists.
"Why," she cried, "it is my sailor! It is surely Jack Pentecrosse!"
Then I recognised the Lady Anastasia.
"And what is Jack Pentecrosse doing in this wicked town? And how is Molly—the countess? Come, Jack, to my house. It is not far from here. I should like a talk with you, and to hear the news. And I will give you a dish of tea. Why, I left Lynn in disgrace—did I not? On account of the grand jury of Middlesex. It was that evening when Lord Fylingdale turned upon his enemies."
Her house was not very far from St. James's Street. As we walked along, she discoursed pleasantly in her soft and charming manner, as if she was made happy just by meeting me, and as if she had always been thinking about me.
She placed me in a chair before the fire; she sat opposite; she pulled her bell rope and called for tea; then she began to talk about Lynn and its people.