Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/177

Charles Dickens] ," I went on, "at the risk of exposing myself to the suspicion of what is called cant—which, of course, is saying something that is moral, or religious, or improving——"

"Excuse me; the sayer being neither moral nor religious, that is cant. And you have saved me the trouble of coming to the point; for I believe that, unconsciously, you are at heart as great a gambler as any of them; and—don't be offended—you know the greatest rock is that air of selfrighteousness —'Take heed that ye deceive not yourselves. "Come, no profane quoting here," said the youth, gravely.

"There is no profanity," I said, laughing; "your quotation is not in Scripture." I was in great vein now, and began to feel myself a match for him. "But supposing, now," I went on, "I succeeded in interposing between two, or one even, and their destruction, why I am foolish enough to think it worth while coming so far for that."

"For Grainger, here?" he sneered. "A brand plucked from the burning. You are the neophyte, it seems, Grainger. Well, there is a class of missionary they call 'soupers,' and who have rather a suspicious class of converts. You're genuine. You're being brought to see the light, aren't you? Seriously," he added, turning to me, "you don't mean to tell us you have touched that rocky ground?"

"Seriously," I replied, impatiently, "I don't care to discuss such things with you."

"With all my heart, though I dare say our friend Grainger has been doing a little bit of the new regeneration—the softening of this stony heart, and all that. (There is a regular dialect for all that, which I profess myself not quite up to.) I can fancy him saying to you, 'What can I do? I am led on—dragged on. I have good intentions. I was virtuous once, and I would give worlds to be back in the old innocent times—the fields, the green, the buttercup—like you, in short.' Ha, ha!"

"Ha, ha!" roared the host. "Devilish good."

It was so like what Grainger had been saying, that I turned sharply and looked at him with surprise. He was looking at D'Eyncourt with quite a wicked glare.

"There is some devilish malignity always in your ideas, D'Eyncourt," he said—a speech that was certainly just and nicely descriptive. For he might certainly guess that I had, in my poor way and by the grace of one greater than I was acting through me, made some impression on Grainger; and this artful ridicule would be precisely a fashion that Satan himself would have suggested for throwing him back.

"Come away," said D'Eyncourt; "we've had enough. Let us go in and see these honest fellows counting their money. I hope they have got a good bag to-night; they work hard enough for it, God knows—harder than many a fellow at home on his sixpence a day, and deserve every coin they get. Good luck to them! I hope they've emptied many a fool's pocket."

As we went out Grainger whispered, "You don't mind what that snarler says. He'd sneer at his dead mother. I'm bad enough, God knows——"

"Don't say a word, Grainger," I said, taking his arm; "his speeches will have very little effect on me."

We walked in to see this curious scene. With all my prejudices, I own that there is no such dramatic scene in the round of modern plays—though, on second thoughts, this is poor praise—as at the end of the long and weary day to find "the band" sitting round and counting their gains. As soon as the last deal is over I know what will come. In rush the hired bullies in their tawdry liveries, carrying brass-bound strong boxes and bags, and a large case. Other emissaries emerge, and all, as it were, fling themselves on the table. Last arrive two or three cold "bank managers," cruel looking men, with the catlike, clean-shaven, pitiless M. B., who, having been at work all day, is now in at the close, to superintend the finish, and, I suppose, gloat over an unusual booty. Everything here is more than characteristic. The henchmen artfully draw a sort of barrier of chairs, pretending to draw them away from the table, in reality a fence against me and other English gentlemen, whom they sapiently think are full of designs for pillage and sack, and note their ridiculously suspicious looks. But the robber naturally thinks every stranger one of his cloth. I would not contaminate my fingers with their gold, nor would I do as I often see some of our virtuous English do—go up obsequiously to "M. Le Croupier," and ask him to change their fifty-pound bank-note, which he does so charmingly, "spilling" out five glistening rows of gold in a second, and giving the full exchange, so different from the cormorant bankers in the town. "That gold, madam,