Page:Knaves of Diamonds.pdf/96

 repeat that, and there was not a cloud on his financial or social horizon save his connection with Jossey and the present impossibility of getting introductions to Court.

He had given Ridley a couple of thousands in cash on Jossey's strong representation, and fondly thought that would settle his unprovable claim for good; but that was just where he had made the biggest mistake of his life. Jossey came out of penal servitude a very different person to the shiftless ne'er-do-weel that he was when he entered it. It had done him a lot of good. It had put backbone into him, and, besides, he had learnt many things that he wotted not of before.

After more than three years of penal toil and discipline, embittered by deprivation of all creature comforts, it was only in the course of nature that when he regained his freedom and found himself in command of