“I dare say,” answered Sam, with something of peevishness; “losses is losses: there’s no use talking about ’em when they’re over and paid.”
“And paid?” here wonderingly spoke Mr. Ringwood; “why, my dear fel—what the deuce—has Florval been with you?”
“D—— Florval!” growled Sam, “I’ve never set eyes on his face since last night; and never wish to see him again.”
“Come, come, enough of this talk; how do you intend to settle the bills which you gave him last night?”
“Bills I what do you mean?”
“I mean, sir, these bills,” said the Honorable Tom, producing two out of his pocket-book, and looking as stern as a lion. “‘I promise to pay, on demand, to the Baron de Florval, the sum of four hundred pounds. October 20, 1838.’ ‘Ten days after date I promise to pay the Baron de et caetera et caetera, one hundred and ninety-eight pounds. Samuel Pogson.’ You didn’t say what regiment you were in.”
“WHAT!” shouted poor Sam, as from a dream, starting up and looking preternaturally pale and hideous.
“D—— it, sir, you don’t affect ignorance: you don’t pretend not to remember that you signed these bills, for money lost in my rooms: money LENT to you, by Madame de Florval, at your own request, and lost to her husband? You don’t suppose, sir, that I shall be such an infernal idiot as to believe you, or such a coward as to put up with a mean subterfuge of this sort. Will you, or will you not, pay the money, sir?”
“I will not,” said Sam, stoutly; “it’s a d——d swin—”
Here Mr. Ringwood sprung up, clenching his riding-whip, and looking so fierce that Sam and I bounded back to the other end of the room. “Utter that word again, and, by heaven, I’ll murder you!” shouted Mr. Ringwood, and looked as if he would, too: “once more, will you, or will you not, pay this money?”