Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/62



there ever such confounded ill luck? My whole life has been a tissue of ill luck: although I have labored, perhaps, harder than any man to make a fortune, something always tumbled it down. In love and in war I was not like others. In my marriages, I had an eye to the main chance: and you see how some unlucky blow would come and throw them over. In the army I was just as prudent, and just as unfortunate. What with judicious betting, and horse-swapping, good luck at billiards, and economy, I do believe I put by my pay every year,—and that is what few can say, who have but an allowance of a hundred a year.

I’ll tell you how it was. I used to be very kind to the young men; I chose their horses for them, and