Charles James Lever

“ As I remained for some minutes awaiting Guy's return, my attention was drawn towards a crowd, in a smaller salon, among whom the usual silent decorum of the play-table seemed held in but small respect, for every instant some burst of hearty laughter, or some open expression of joy or anger burst forth, by which I immediately perceived that they were the votaries of the roulette table, a game at which the strict propriety and etiquette ever maintained at rouge et noir, are never exacted. ”

“ Ah, thought I, this is the first stage; how naturally one always wakes at the change of horses,—a kind of instinct implanted by Providence, I suppose, to direct us to a little refreshment on the road. With these pious feelings I let down the glass, and called out to the garcon for a glass of brandy and a cigar. While he was bringing them, I had time to look about, and perceived, to my very great delight, that I had the whole coupe to myself. 'Are there any passengers coming in here?' said I, as the waiter came forward with my petit verre. 'I should think not, sir,' said the fellow with a leer. ”

“ As for myself, I did not know well what to think of it; my old fondness for adventure being ever sufficiently strong in me to give a relish to any thing which bore the least resemblance to one. This I now concealed, and sympathised with my fair friend upon our mishap, and assuring her, at the same time, that there could be no doubt of our overtaking Mrs. Bingham before her arrival at Amiens. ”

“ And there, look at that old and weather-beaten man, with grey eyebrows, and moustaches, who throws from the breast-pocket of his frock ever and anon, a handful of gold pieces upon the table; he evidently neither knows nor cares for the amount, for the banker himself is obliged to count over the stake for him—that is Blucher, the never-wanting attendant at the Salon; he has been an immense loser, but plays on with the same stern perseverance with which he would pour his bold cavalry through a ravine torn by artillery; he stands by the still waning chance with a courage that never falters. ”

“ One strong feature of the levelling character of a taste for play has never ceased to impress me most forcibly—not only do the individual peculiarities of the man give way before the all-absorbing passion—but stranger still, the very boldest traits of nationality even fade and disappear before it; and man seems, under the high-pressure power of this greatest of all stimulants, resolved into a most abstract state. ”

“ Unconscious of all around me, I followed Guy along the gilded and glittering lobby, which led to the Salon, and it was only as the servant in rich livery came forward to take my hat and cane that I remembered where I was. Then the full sense of all I had been listening to rushed upon me, and the unfitness, and indeed the indecency of the place for such communications as we were engaged in, came most forcibly before me. Sir Guy, it is true, had always preferred my cousin to me ”

“ O'Leary, and I have more than once witnessed the triumph of his homely manner and blunt humour over the more polished and well-bred taste of his competitors for favour; and what might have been the limit to such success, heaven alone can tell, if it were not that he laboured under a counter-balancing infirmity, sufficient to have swamped a line-of-battle ship itself. It was simply this—a most unfortunate propensity to talk of the wrong place, person, or time, in any society he found himself ”

“ This was an arrangement so very agreeable and unlooked for by me, that I pressed Miss Bingham as far as I well could, and at last succeeded in overcoming her scruples, and permitting me to shawl her. One has always a tremendous power of argument with the uninitiated abroad, by a reference to a standard of manners and habits totally different from our own. Thus the talismanic words—"Oh! don't be shocked; remember you are in France," did more to satisfy my young friend's mind than all I could have said for an hour. ”

“ What a study for the man who would watch the passions and emotions of his fellow-men, would the table of a rouge et noir gambling-house present—the skill and dexterity which games of other kinds require, being here wanting, leave the player free to the full abandonment of the passion. The interest is not a gradually increasing or vacillating one, as fortune and knowledge of the game favour; the result is uninfluenced by any thing of his doing; with the last turned card of the croupier is he rich or ruined ”

“ The gambler that sits down to play cards, or hazard against himself, may perhaps be the only person that can comprehend this tendency of mine. We both of us are playing for nothing (or love, which I suppose is synonymous;) we neither of us put forth our strength; for that very reason, and in fact like the waiter at Vauxhall who was complimented upon the dexterity with which he poured out the lemonade, and confessed that he spent his mornings "practising with vater," we pass a considerable portion of our lives in a mimic warfare, which, if it seem unprofitable, is, nevertheless, pleasant. ”

“ Round went the ball once more, and once more he lost.
"Look now, divil a lie in it, he makes them go wherever he pleases. I'll take a turn now at the tables; fair play's a jewel—and we'll see how you'll get on."
So saying, he proceeded to insinuate himself into the chair of the croupier, whom he proposed to supersede by no very gentle means. This was of course resisted, and as the loud mirth of the bystanders grew more and more boisterous, the cries of "a la porte, a la porte," from the friends of the bank, rung through the crowd. ”

“ Bingham blushed, her daughter bridled, and I nearly suffocated with shame and suppressed laughter.
"After a most tender farewell of my bride or wife, I don't know which, I retired for the night with a mind vacillating between my hopes of happiness and my fears for the result of a journey so foreign to all my habits of travelling, and in which I could not but tremble at the many casualties my habitual laziness and dislike to any hours but of my own choosing might involve me in. ”

“ I think it is Washington Irving who has so admirably depicted the mortification of a dandy angler, who, with his beaver garnished with brown hackles, his well-posed rod, polished gaff, and handsome landing-net, with every thing befitting, spends his long summer day whipping a trout stream without a rise or even a ripple to reward him, while a ragged urchin, with a willow wand, and a bent pin, not ten yards distant, is covering the greensward with myriads of speckled and scaly backs, from one pound weight to four; so it is in every thing—"the race is not to the swift;" ”

“ There is besides some wonderful fascination to most men in the very aspect of high play: to pit your fortune against that of another—to see whether or not your luck shall not exceed some others—are feelings that have a place in most bosoms, and are certainly, if not naturally existing, most easily generated in the bustle and excitement of the gambling-house. ”

“ Ah, how little do we know of fate, and how often do we despise circumstances that determine all our fortunes in the world. To think that a gen-d'arme should have any thing to do with my future lot in life, and that the real want of a passport to travel should involve the probable want of a licence to marry. ”

“ Meanwhile the poor old maire, who had been an employe in the stormy days of the revolution, and also under Napoleon, and who full concurred with Swift that "a crowd is a mob, if composed even of bishops," firmly believed that the uproar beneath in the street was the announcement of a new change of affairs at Paris, determined to be early in the field, and shouted therefore with all his lungs—"vive le peuple"—"Vive la charte"—"A bas les autres." ”

“ I now discovered one great cause of the mirth of the bystanders, at least the English portion of them. Mr. O'Leary, when placing his money upon the table, observed the singular practice of announcing aloud the amount of his bet, which, for his own information, he not only reduced to English but also Irish currency; thus the stillness of the room was every instant broken by a strong Irish accent pronouncing something of this sort—"five francs," "four and a penny"—"ten francs," "eight and three ha'pence." The amusement thus caused was increased by the excitement his losses threw him into. ”

“ Harry Lorrequer—whom Stultze entreated to wear his coats, the ornament of Hyde Park, the last appeal in dress, fashion, and equipage—was obliged to parade through the mob of a market-town in France, with four gens-d'armes for his companions, and he himself habited in a mongrel character—half postillion, half Delaware Indian. The incessant yells of laughter—the screams of the children, and the outpouring of every species of sarcasm and ridicule, at my expense, were not all—for, as I emerged from the porte-chochere I saw Isabella in the window: her eyes were red with weeping ”

“ If that extraordinary flutter and flurry of sensations which will now and then seize you, when walking upon a lonely country road with a pretty girl for your companion, whose arm is linked in yours, and whose thoughts, as far you can guess at least, are travelling the same path with your own—if this be animal magnetism, or one of its phenomena, then do I swear by Mesmer, whatever it be, delusion or otherwise, it has given me the brightest moments of my life—these are the real "winged dreams" of pleasures which outlive others of more absorbing and actual interest at the time. ”

“ Numero vingt-huit, quite far enough from this part of the house I should suppose from my number,—that old gen-d'arme was a fine fellow—what strong attachment to Napoleon; and the story of the pope; I hope I may remember that. Isabella, poor girl—this adventure must really distress her—hope she is not crying over it—what a devil of a hard bed—and it is not five feet long too—and, bless my soul, is this all by way of covering; why I shall be perished here. Oh! ”

“ O'Leary excited should prevent the other players from betting.
"Perd," said O'Leary, "again. Divil another song you sing than 'perd,' and I'm not quite clear you're not cheating all the while—only, God help you if you are!"
As he so said, the head of a huge black-thorn stick was half protruded across the table, causing renewed mirth; for, among other regulations, every cane, however trifling, is always demanded at the door; and thus a new subject of astonishment arose as to how he had succeeded in carrying it with him into the salon. ”

“ There is something so like the inevitable character of fate associated with the result of a chance, which you can in no way affect or avert, that I have, notwithstanding a strong bias for play, ever dreaded and avoided the rouge et noir table; hitherto prudential motives had their share in the resolve; a small loss at play becomes a matter of importance to a sub in a marching regiment; and therefore I was firm in my determination to avoid the gambling-table. ”

“ I had not much time given me for consideration now, for before I had well deciphered the number over a door before me, the loud noise of several voices on the floor beneath attracted my attention, and the moment after the heavy tramp of feet followed, and in an instant the gallery was thronged by the men and women of the house—waiters, hostlers, cooks, scullions, filles de chambre, mingled with gens-d'armes, peasants, and town's people, all eagerly forcing their way up stairs ”

“ After all, for how many of our happiest feelings are we indebted to the weakness of our nature. The man that is wise at nineteen, "Je l'en fais mon compliment," but I assuredly do not envy him; and now, even now, when I number more years than I should like to "confess," rather than suffer the suspicious watchfulness of age to creep on me, I prefer to "go on believing," even though every hour of the day should show me, duped and deceived. ”

“ How was I now to proceed? for if this apartment did not contain any of the people of the hotel, I had but a sorry excuse for disturbing the repose of any traveller who might have been more fortunate than myself in the article of blankets. To go back however, would be absurd, having already taken so much trouble to find out a room that was inhabited—for that such was the case, a short, thick snore assured me—so that my resolve was at once made, to waken the sleeper, and endeavour to interest him in my destitute situation. ”

“ How many a man has found it impossible, with every effort of his heart and brain aiding his good wishes, to sit with unclosed eyes and ears through a dull sermon in the dog-days; how many an expectant, longing heir has yielded to the drowsy influence when endeavouring to look contrite under the severe correction of a lecture on extravagance from his uncle. Who has not felt the irresistible tendency to "drop off" in the half hour before dinner at a stupid country-house? I need not catalogue the thousand other situations in life infinitely more "sleep-compelling" than Morphine ”

“ These, with the addition of a pair of green spectacles, the glass of one being absent, and permitting the look-out of a sharp, grey eye, twinkling with drollery and good humour, form the most palpable of his externals. In point of character, they who best knew him represented him as the best-tempered, best-hearted fellow breathing; ever ready to assist a friend, and always postponing his own plans and his own views, when he had any, to the wishes and intentions of others. ”