Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/82

 here so imperfectly sketched, Jasper Losely niched himself, as _le bel Anglais_. (Pleasant representative of the English nation!) Not that those circles are to have the sole credit of his corruption. No! Justice is justice! Stand we up for our native land! _Le bel Anglais_ entered those circles a much greater knave than most of those whom he found there. But there, at least, he learned to set a yet higher value on his youth, and strength, and comeliness--on his readiness of resource--on the reckless audacity that browbeat timid and some even valiant men--on the six feet one of faultless symmetry that captivated foolish, and some even sensible women. Gaming was, however, his vice by predilection. A month before Arabella met him, he had had a rare run of luck. On the strength of it he had resolved to return to London, and (wholly oblivious of the best of creatures till she had thus startled him) hunt out and swoop off with an heiress. Three French friends accompanied him. Each had the same object. Each believed that London swarmed with heiresses. They were all three fine-looking men. One was a Count,--at least he said so. But proud of his rank?--not a bit of it: all for liberty (no man more likely to lose it)--all for fraternity (no man you would less love as a brother). And as for _egalite!_--the son of a shoemaker who was _homme de lettres_, and wrote in a journal, inserted a jest on the Count's courtship. "All men are equal before the pistol," said the Count; and knowing that in that respect he was equal to most, having practised at _poupees_ from the age of fourteen, he called out the son of Crispin and shot him through the lungs. Another of Jasper's travelling friends was an _enfant die peuple_--boasted that he was a foundling. He made verses of lugubrious strain, and taught Jasper how to shuffle at whist. The third, like Jasper, had been designed for trade; and, like Jasper, he had a soul above it. In politics he was a Communist--in talk Philanthropist. He was the cleverest man of them all, and is now at the galleys. The fate of his two compatriots--more obscure it is not my duty to discover. In that peculiar walk of life Jasper is as much as I can possibly manage.

It need not be said that Jasper carefully abstained from reminding his old city friends of his existence. It was his object and his hope to drop all identity with that son of a convict who had been sent out of the way to escape humiliation.