I would have it--I would go on at it--the countess mixed the tumblers of punch for me, and we had cards as well as grog after supper, and I played and drank until I don't know what I did. I was like I was last night. I was taken away and put to bed somehow, and never woke until the next day, to a roaring headache, and to see my servant, who said the Honorable Deuceace wanted to see me, and was waiting in the sitting-room.
'How are you, colonel?' says he, a-coming into my bedroom. 'How long did you stay last night after I went away? The play was getting too high for me, and I'd lost enough to you for one night.'
"'To me', says I, 'how's that, my dear feller? (for though he was an earl's son, we was as familiar as you and me). How's that, my dear feller,' says I, and he tells me, that he had borrowed thirty louis of me at vingt-et-un, that he gave me an I.O.U. for it the night before, which I put into my pocket-book before he left the room. I takes out my card-case--it was the countess as worked it for me--and there was the I.O.U. sure enough, and he paid me thirty louis in gold down upon the table at my bed-side. So I said he was a gentleman, and asked him if he would like to take any thing, when my servant should get it for him; but the Honorable Deuceace don't drink of a morning, and he went away to some business which he said he had.
"Presently there's another ring at my outer door: and this time it's Bloundell-Bloundell and the marky that comes in. 'Bong jour, marky,'
says I. 'Good morning--no headache,' says he. So I said I had one, and how I must have been uncommon queer the night afore; but they both declared I didn't show no signs of having had too much, but took my liquor as grave as a judge.
"'So,' says the marky, 'Deuceace has been with you; we met him in the Palais Royal as we were coming from breakfast. Has he settled with you? Get it while you can: he's a slippery card; and as he won three ponies of Bloundell, I recommend you to get your money while he has some.'
"'He has paid me,' says I; but I knew no more than the dead that he owed me any thing, and don't remember a bit about lending him thirty louis."
The marky and Bloundell looks and smiles at each other at this; and Bloundell says, 'Colonel, you are a queer feller. No man could have supposed, from your manners, that you had tasted any thing stronger than tea all night, and yet you forget things in the morning. Come, come--tell that to the marines, my friend--we won't have it any price.' '_En effet_' says the marky, twiddling his little black mustaches in the chimney-glass, and making a lunge or two as he used to do at the fencing-school. (He was a wonder at the fencing-school, and I've seen him knock down the image fourteen times running, at Lepage's). 'Let us speak of affairs. Colonel, you understand that affairs of honor are best settled at once: perhaps it won't be inconvenient to you to arrange our little matters of last night.'
"'What little matters?' says I. 'Do you owe me any money, marky?'
"'Bah!' says he; 'do not let us have any more jesting. I have your note of hand for three hundred and forty louis. _La voici._' says he, taking out a paper from his pocket-book.
"'And mine for two hundred and ten,' says Bloundell-Bloundell, and he pulls out _his_ bit of paper.
"I was in such a rage of wonder at this, that I sprang out of bed, and wrapped my dressing-gown round me. 'Are you come here to make a fool of me?' says I. 'I don't owe you two hundred, or two thousand, or two louis; and I won't pay you a farthing. Do you suppose you can catch me with your notes of hand? I laugh at 'em and at you; and I believe you to be a couple--'
"'A couple of what?' says Mr. Bloundell. 'You, of course, are aware that we are a couple of men of honor, Colonel Altamont, and not come here to trifle or to listen to abuse from you. You will either pay us or we will expose you as a cheat, and chastise you as a cheat, too,'
says Bloundell.
"'_Oui, parbleu_,' says the marky, but I didn't mind him, for I could have thrown the little fellow out of the window; but it was different with Bloundell, he was a large man, that weighs three stone more than me, and stands six inches higher, and I think he could have done for me.
"'Monsieur will pay, or monsieur will give me the reason why. I believe you're little better than a _polisson_, Colonel Altamont,'--that was the phrase he used"--Altamont said with a grin--and I got plenty more of this language from the two fellows, and was in the thick of the row with them, when another of our party came in. This was a friend of mine--a gent I had met at Boulogne, and had taken to the countess's myself. And as he hadn't played at all on the previous night, and had actually warned me against Bloundell and the others, I told the story to him, and so did the other two.
"'I am very sorry,' says he. 'You would go on playing: the countess entreated you to discontinue. These gentlemen offered repeatedly to stop. It was you that insisted on the large stakes, not they.' In fact he charged dead against me: and when the two others went away, he told me how the marky would shoot me as sure as my name was--was what it is. 'I left the countess crying, too,' said he. 'She hates these two men; she has warned you repeatedly against them,' (which she actually had done, and often told me never to play with them) 'and now, colonel, I have left her in hysterics almost, lest there should be any quarrel between you, and that confounded marky should put a bullet through your head. It's my belief,' says my friend, 'that that woman is distractedly in love with you.'
"'Do you think so?' says I; upon which my friend told me how she had actually gone down on her knees to him and said, 'Save Colonel Altamont!'
"As soon as I was dressed, I went and called upon that lovely woman.
She gave a shriek and pretty near fainted when she saw me. She called me Ferdinand--I'm blest if she didn't."
"I thought your name was Jack," said Strong, with a laugh; at which the colonel blushed very much behind his dyed whiskers.
"A man may have more names than one, mayn't he, Strong?" Altamont asked. "When I'm with a lady, I like to take a good one. She called me by my Christian name. She cried fit to break your heart. I can't stand seeing a woman cry--never could--not while I'm fond of her. She said she could not bear to think of my losing so much money in her house.
Wouldn't I take her diamonds and necklaces, and pay part?
"I swore I wouldn't touch a farthing's worth of her jewelry, which perhaps I did not think was worth a great deal, but what can a woman do more than give you her all? That's the sort I like, and I know there's plenty of 'em. And I told her to be easy about the money, for I would not pay one single farthing.
"'Then they'll shoot you,' says she; 'they'll kill my Ferdinand.'"
"They'll kill my Jack wouldn't have sounded well in French," Strong said, laughing.
"Never mind about names," said the other, sulkily: "a man of honor may take any name he chooses, I suppose."
"Well, go on with your story," said Strong. "She said they would kill you."
"'No,' says I, 'they won't: for I will not let that scamp of a marquis send me out of the world; and if he lays a hand on me, I'll brain him, marquis as he is.'
"At this the countess shrank back from me as if I had said something very shocking. 'Do I understand Colonel Altamont aright?' says she: 'and that a British officer refuses to meet any person who provokes him to the field of honor?'
"'Field of honor be hanged, countess,' says I, 'You would not have me be a target for that little scoundrel's pistol practice.'
"'Colonel Altamont,' says the countess, 'I thought you were a man of honor--I thought, I--but no matter. Good-by, sir.' And she was sweeping out of the room her voice regular choking in her pocket-handkerchief.
"'Countess,' says I, rushing after her, and seizing her hand.
"'Leave me, Monsieur le Colonel,' says she, shaking me off, 'my father was a general of the Grand Army. A soldier should know how to pay _all_ his debts of honor.'
"What could I do? Every body was against me. Caroline said I had lost the money: though I didn't remember a syllable about the business. I had taken Deuceace's money, too; but then it was because he offered it to me you know, and that's a different thing. Every one of these chaps was a man of fashion and honor; and the marky and the countess of the first families in France. And by Jove, sir, rather than offend her, I paid the money up: five hundred and sixty gold Napoleons, by Jove: besides three hundred which I lost when I had my revenge.
"And I can't tell you at this minute whether I was done or not concluded the colonel, musing. Sometimes I think I was: but then Caroline was so fond of me. That woman would never have seen me done: never, I'm sure she wouldn't: at least, if she would, I'm deceived in woman."
Any further revelations of his past life which Altamont might have been disposed to confide to his honest comrade the chevalier, were interrupted by a knocking at the outer door of their chambers; which, when opened by Grady the servant, admitted no less a person than Sir Francis Clavering into the presence of the two worthies.
"The governor, by Jove," cried Strong, regarding the arrival of his patron with surprise. "What's brought you here?" growled Altamont, looking sternly from under his heavy eyebrows at the baronet. "It's no good, I warrant." And indeed, good very seldom brought Sir Francis Clavering into that or any other place.
Whenever he came into Shepherd's Inn, it was money that brought the unlucky baronet into those precincts: and there was commonly a gentleman of the money-dealing world in waiting for him at Strong's chambers, or at Campion's below; and a question of bills to negotiate or to renew. Clavering was a man who had never looked his debts fairly in the face, familiar as he had been with them all his life; as long as he could renew a bill, his mind was easy regarding it; and he would sign almost any thing for to-morrow, provided to-day could be left unmolested. He was a man whom scarcely any amount of fortune could have benefited permanently, and who was made to be ruined, to cheat small tradesmen, to be the victim of astuter sharpers: to be niggardly and reckless, and as destitute of honesty as the people who cheated him, and a dupe, chiefly because he was too mean to be a successful knave. He had told more lies in his time, and undergone more baseness of stratagem in order to stave off a small debt, or to swindle a poor creditor, than would have suffered to make a fortune for a braver rogue. He was abject and a shuffler in the very height of his prosperity. Had he been a crown prince, he could not have been more weak, useless, dissolute or ungrateful. He could not move through life except leaning on the arm of somebody: and yet he never had an agent but he mistrusted him; and marred any plans which might be arranged for his benefit, by secretly acting against the people whom he employed. Strong knew Clavering, and judged him quite correctly. It was not as friends that this pair met: but the chevalier worked for his principal, as he would when in the army have pursued a harassing march, or undergone his part in the danger and privations of a siege; because it was his duty, and because he had agreed to it. "What is it he wants," thought the two officers of the Shepherd's Inn garrison, when the baronet came among them.
His pale face expressed extreme anger and irritation. "So, sir," he said, addressing Altamont, "you've been at your old tricks."
"Which of 'um?" asked Altamont, with a sneer.
"You have been at the Rouge et Noir: you were there last night," cried the baronet.
"How do you know--were you there?" the other said. "I was at the Club: but it wasn't on the colors I played--ask the captain--I've been telling him of it. It was with the bones. It was at hazard, Sir Francis, upon my word and honor it was;" and he looked at the baronet with a knowing, humorous mock humility, which only seemed to make the other more angry.
"What the deuce do I care, sir, how a man like you loses his money, and whether it is at hazard or roulette?" screamed the baronet, with a multiplicity of oaths, and at the top of his voice. "What I will not have, sir, is that you should use my name, or couple it with yours.
Damn him, Strong, why don't you keep him in better order? I tell you he has gone and used my name again, sir; drawn a bill upon me, and lost the money on the table--I can't stand it--I won't stand it. Flesh and blood won't bear it. Do you know how much I have paid for you, sir?"
"This was only a very little 'un, Sir Francis--only fifteen pound, Captain Strong, they wouldn't stand another: and it oughtn't to anger you, governor. Why it's so trifling, I did not even mention it to Strong,--did I now, captain? I protest it had quite slipped my memory, and all on account of that confounded liquor I took."
"Liquor or no liquor, sir, it is no business of mine. I don't care what you drink, or where you drink it--only it shan't be in my house.
And I will not have you breaking into my house of a night, and a fellow like you intruding himself on my company: how dared you show yourself in Grosvenor-place last night, sir--and--and what do you suppose my friends must think of me when they see a man of your sort walking into my dining-room uninvited, and drunk, and calling for liquor as if you were the master of the house.
"They'll think you know some very queer sort of people, I dare say,"
Altamont said with impenetrable good-humor. "Look here, baronet, I apologize; on my honor, I do, and ain't an apology enough between two gentlemen? It was a strong measure I own, walking into your cuddy, and calling for drink, as if I was the captain: but I had had too much before, you see, that's why I wanted some more; nothing can be more simple--and it was because they wouldn't give me no more money upon your name at the Black and Red, that I thought I would come down and speak to you about it. To refuse me was nothing: but to refuse a bill drawn on you that have been such a friend to the shop, and are a baronet, and a member of parliament, and a gentleman, and no mistake--Damme, it's ungrateful." "By heavens, if ever you do it again. If ever you dare to show yourself in my house; or give my name at a gambling-house or at any other house, by Jove--at any other house--or give any reference at all to me, or speak to me in the street, by Gad, or any where else until I speak to you--I disclaim you altogether--I won't give you another shilling."
"Governor, don't be provoking," Altamont said, surlily. "Don't talk to me about daring to do this thing or t'other, or when my dander is up it's the very thing to urge me on. I oughtn't to have come last night, I know I oughtn't: but I told you I was drunk, and that ought to be sufficient between gentleman and gentleman."
"You a gentleman! dammy, sir," said the baronet, "how dares a fellow like you to call himself a gentleman?"
"I ain't a baronet, I know;" growled the other; "and I've forgotten how to be a gentleman almost now, but--but I was one once, and my father was one, and I'll not have this sort of talk from you, Sir F.
Clavering, that's flat. I want to go abroad again. Why don't you come down with the money, and let me go? Why the devil are you to be rolling in riches, and me to have none? Why should you have a house and a table covered with plate, and me be in a garret here in this beggarly Shepherd's Inn? We're partners, ain't we? I've as good a right to be rich as you have, haven't I? Tell the story to Strong here, if you like; and ask him to be umpire between us. I don't mind letting my secret out to a man that won't split. Look here, Strong--perhaps you guess the story already--the fact is, me and the Governor--"
"D--, hold your tongue," shrieked out the baronet in a fury. "You shall have the money as soon as I can get it. I ain't made of money.