Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/127

 extent, understanding and gaining by, be party feeling what it may. But these men are known to the world as men of generous and exalted natures. Guiding stars are these men, who, in arguing questions of interest to the commonwealth, have shown themselves the expounders and interpreters of what thousands of others have thought and would express. These men have the voice of the people with them; these men are not merely Members of Parliament, but Men of the People. When your M.P.-ship learns that meaning with it, my honourable friend, it will mean something and be something; so long as it does not, it will be Mere Pretence.  

 

is a busy time indeed. There is clatter, rattle, click-click, sudden pause, almost awful, a low proclamation, and then the setting in of chink and jingle; such crowds—half a dozen deep about the table; while outside promenade as thickly the well-dressed girls and ladies; the stupid men who are pouring into pretty ears their insipid jests, but which they are not to be blamed for thinking racy from the hearty reception they meet; the eager and amused first visitors, delighted and confounded with everything, and chuckling with a stupid complacency over the privilege of being allowed to enjoy those lights and gorgeous chambers, soft sofas, and amusement, all for nothing! There are mean minds to whom this element is a sort of whet. (I hear my dear pet at home say, as she reads, that I am getting a little bitter; but this place does help to give one a mean estimate of human nature.) But I look round and try to make out Grainger. I wander from one table to the other. Certainly on this night of excitement there can be no such study as these human faces and expressions, especially at the moment the cards are being dealt. Not at chapel or church, if the Doctor Seraphicus himself were preaching, could we find five seconds of such absorbed expectancy and attention. The heart, soul, all, are in the faces. Suddenly, as the verdict sounds—light, positive light, drifts over some, and a positive shadow over others; shocking, shocking, yet so interesting. Talk of a play! I could look on here from morning to night. It has endless variety, and I must be very straight-laced if I could not do so with that object, the study of human character, merely in view. By the way, the doctor said I was to relax, and amuse myself in every way. I suppose he meant to gamble, but that prescription, my good quack, won't do for me. I have certainly been moping a little. There I see a greater crowd—faces all looking at one face, gutteral whispers—"way"—so the Germans call "oui"—"zest luay!" I can understand—a hero of the night—a worn, lorn creature—a sad, highbrowed, bald, gentlemanly man, fighting the desperate fight, standing up to the very teeth of the bank. He was playing what seems the forlorn hope—"le maximoom" twelve thousand francs, every time; and a fat, clean, snowy cushion of notes was before him, delicately marked in faint blue, and as thick as the leaves of a book. On this night, Mephistopheles is playing one of his most cruel freaks, and one which he is very fond of. This votary has been winning during the previous few days, and, it is said, has carried off some six or eight thousand pounds. The pinch-faced ecclesiastical looking overseer walks about uneasily, and has regarded him with dislike all but openly expressed. But to-night I can see the bale of notes shifting across from one colour to the other, ruthlessly seized on, counted over with an ostentatious particularity, note after note laid out in splendid piles, and the trifling balance tossed back contemptuously. Then I see him gathering up his dwindling notes, turn them over with a pitiable irresolution, and then lay them down on another colour. Again is proclamation made; away they flutter, drawn in by the merciless far-stretching croupier's claw; and I see his yellow fingers working nervously at his forehead, which is as yellow. Then comes the sudden scrape as the chair is pushed back, and he is gone. No one cares for the unsuccessful, and no eye of sympathy, rather a look of impatient contempt, follows him.

But Grainger! Then it was my eye fell upon him, seated close by, a few gold pieces before him, his face distorted with impatience, fury, and hate. Indeed, it seemed another Grainger, or that a new soul had entered into him. It almost startled me; but still I recollected what I had laid out for myself. I went round softly and touched him: he looked back savagely.

"Well?" he said.

"Come away, do; I want to speak to you."

"Is that all? Then don't worry me now."

"Do listen to me, Grainger. Come, do."

"Confound it, leave me alone, will you. What the devil do you mean?" Such demoniac fury!

The clergyman was right after all. I had