Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/150

140[January 9, 1869] had determined to give the sum he had offered before, and no more. Something prompted me at that moment to try and do something for my friend, and act a little, though I doubt if it was strictly conscientious. Still, making a bargain is making a bargain, and I boldly said that it was too little, out of the question, &c. He was a Jew, and I think not disappointed that there was to be some "haggling." On that we set to work; my pet should have seen the latent diplomatic powers I called into play. Will you believe me—if I did not triumph over the Jew in the end, and obtain a hundred pounds more for my friend! A memorandum was signed, and a day named for me to go before the consul, and finally conclude the matter. I am greatly elated at this little victory. On coming home, I found Grainger waiting at the train. My first impulse was to tell him of what I had done; but a wiser discretion checked me. Here again is a little discipline; and it seems to me, on analysis, that this wish of communicating news, &c., is a mere shape of vanity, and arises from no desire to gratify or amuse any one else. He told me he had not played the whole day, but that he had amused himself watching the game, and trying whether there was anything in what I had said.

"Well, I spent two hours in that way," he said, "and, my dear friend, I must give it against you. Our friend the Pasha, as you called him, is right. You don't know what that man knows."

"He is a shallow creature, I know," I said; "I wonder how he is even tolerated here."

"That fellow has a history, I can tell you. Harems and seraglios, and sacks, and all that. Romantic to a degree."

"Romantic," I said, angrily; "that is the genteel name for vice and villany and rascaldom."

"Hush! here he is. I mustn't abuse him, as he has me bound—I mean I mustn't let him hear me abuse him."

D'Eyncourt came up, his head back, his round hat back also, and with a little pink on the centre of his "mutton-fat" cheeks.

"Well?" he said, "going in to play—to step into the bird-lime, and try a system?"

"I can't play," said Grainger. "I am going to give up. It's a struggle, and it' for the best."

"What! going to reform? How many tricks have you tried in your life, my friend? Is this the last?"

"Tricks, Mr. D'Eyncourt?" said Grainger, colouring. "Tricks?"

The other put his head further back, as if to get a good look, and said, coldly, "I repeat, tricks, Mr. Grainger."

The other, muttering something to himself, looked down.

"Yes, I always speak plain. Well, come in, and let us look at the game. D'ye hear?"

"No use asking you, Austen," said Grainger, as it were obeying an order; "and I won't press you to come. Only one moment."

He looked very helpless and appealingly at me.

"Oh, I forgot," said D'Eyncourt; "you mentioned something about scruples. Stay with your friend. There's Colonel Manby, yonder."

I had already, my pet will remember, rather qualified the resolution I had taken about going into the rooms. In that way, I believe, we are not responsible, in any sort, for the doings of the wicked—at least as regards men—in different actions. As well might we look into the lives of all friends' jealously, and "cut" every one of them—fathers, brothers—who had done anything that was not quite correct. I said:

"I have no scruples of the kind. Merely walking through, or looking on, does not affect the question."

High play was going on; the count with the worn face was in his place, his little bale of clean notes before him.

"Ah, there he is!" said D'Eyncourt. "They have got their pigeon. Let me see. How many feathers has he left? Just a few, but enough to play with. Yes, they are giving him two or three back, to stick into his wing, if he can."

There was a crowd opposite, uttering the usual ejaculations—much as what the lower Irish do when a strange story is told to them: "Il a gagné," "C'est le max-i-moom"—so they pronounce it. "Fooh!" the breath being drawn in between the teeth.

"The old story," said D'Eyncourt, contemptuously.

a little gambling proverb of my own. He should be told of the new system."

I had been watching the player, and an idea occurred to me. I snatched a card