The Templars had been regaled by our friend Richie Moniplies in a private chamber at Beaujeu's, where he might be considered as good company; for he had exchanged his serving-man's cloak and jerkin for a grave yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, but such as might have befitted an older man than himself. He had positively declined presenting himself at the ordinary, a point to which his companions were very desirous to have brought him, for it will be easily believed that such wags as Lowestoffe and his companion were not indisposed to a little merriment at the expense of the raw and pedantic Scotsman; besides the chance of easing him of a few pieces, of which he appeared to have acquired considerable command. But not even a succession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the little brilliant atoms circulated like motes in the sun's rays, had the least effect on Richie's sense of decorum. He retained the gravity of a judge, even while he drank like a fish, partly from his own natural inclination to good liquor, partly in the way of good fellowship towards his guests. When the wine began to make some innovation on their heads, Master Lowestoffe, tired, perhaps, of the humours of Richie, who began to become yet more stoically contradictory and dogmatical than even in the earlier part of the entertainment, proposed to his friend to break up their debauch and join the gamesters.
The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie discharged the reckoning of the party, with a generous remuneration to the attendants, which was received with cap and knee, and many assurances of—“Kindly welcome, gentlemen.”
“I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen,” said Richie to his companions,—“and I would you had cracked another quart ere you went, or stayed to take some slight matter of supper, and a glass of Rhenish. I thank you, however, for having graced my poor collation thus far; and I commend you to fortune, in your own courses, for the ordinary neither was, is, nor shall be, an element of mine.”
“Fare thee well, then,” said Lowestoffe, “most sapient and sententious Master Moniplies. May you soon have another mortgage to redeem, and may I be there to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as heartily as you have done this day.”
“Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so—but, if you would but hear me speak a few words of admonition respecting this wicked ordinary—”
“Reserve the lesson, most honourable Richie,” said Lowestoffe, “until I have lost all my money,” showing, at the same time, a purse indifferently well provided, “and then the lecture is likely to have some weight.”
“And keep my share of it, Richie,” said the other Templar, showing an almost empty purse, in his turn, “till this be full again, and then I will promise to hear you with some patience.”
“Ay, ay, gallants,” said Richie, “the full and the empty gang a' ae gate, and that is a grey one—but the time will come.”
“Nay, it is come already,” said Lowestoffe; “they have set out the hazard table. Since you will peremptorily not go with us, why, farewell, Richie.”
“And farewell, gentlemen,” said Richie, and left the house, into which they had returned.