Page:What will he do with it.djvu/267

Rh spliced yourself? a handsome fellow like you can be at no loss for an heiress."

"Heiresses are the most horrid cheats in the world," said Losely: "there is always some father, or uncle, or fusty Lord Chancellor whose consent is essential, and not to be had. Heiresses in scores have been over head and ears in love with me. Before I left Paris, I sold their locks of hair to a wig-maker—three great trunksful. Honor bright. But there were only two whom I could have safely allowed to run away with me; and they were so closely watched, poor things, that I was forced to leave them to their fate—early graves! Don't talk to me of heiresses, Dolly, I have been the victim of heiresses. But a rich widow is an estimable creature. Against widows, if rich, I have not a word to say; and to tell you the truth, there is a widow whom I suspect I have fascinated, and whose connection I have a particular private reason for deeming desirable! She has a whelp of a son, who is a spoke in my wheel—were I his father-in-law would not I be a spoke in his? I'd teach the boy life, Dolly." Here all trace of beauty vanished from Jasper's face, and Poole, staring at him, pushed away his chair. "But"—continued Losely, regaining his more usual expression of levity and boldness—" But I am not yet quite sure what the widow has, besides her son, in her own possession; we shall see. Meanwhile, is there—no chance of a rubber to-night?"

"None! unless you will let Brown and Smith play upon tick."

"Pooh! but there's Robinson, he has an aunt he can borrow from?"

"Robinson! spitting blood, with an attack of delirium tremens!—you have done for him."

"Can sorrow from the goblet flow?" said Losely. "Well, I suppose it can—when a man has no coats to his stomach; but you and I, Dolly Poole, have stomachs thick as pea-jackets, and proof as gutta percha."

Poole forced a ghastly smile, while Losely, gayly springing up, swept his share of booty into his pockets, slapped his comrade on the back, and said—"Then, if the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain! Hang whist, and up with rouge-et-noir! I have an infallible method of winning—only, it requires capital. You will club your cash with mine, and I'll play for both. Sup here to-night, and we'll go to the hell afterward."

Samuel Dolly had the most perfect confidence in his friend's science in the art of gambling, and he did not, therefore, dissent from the proposal made. Jasper gave a fresh touch to his toilet,