knowledge of the chief passions and follies of
human nature, and seldom found to fail—tricks
old even in Holbein's time. In their gangs
there was always a combination of talent and of
slang. The Guller was the old Jew miser who
was ready to lend money to the defeated player
when he became excited by the hope of recovering
his losses; the Woodpecker was the parasite
who hung round the novice and introduced
him to the gang; the Eagle was the strong
player who knew all the modes of secreting
or forcing cards. They had flat-faced rings
which reflected the cards that they drew; or
they put their gull before a mirror, which
reflected his cards to an accomplice. Sometimes
a bright-cut steel sword-hilt, laid over their
left wrist, answered the same purpose of a
mirror. Not unfrequently the Eagle took the
form of the Deluder—a careless, handsome
Gil Blas, who would drop in by accident and
join the game, or stand behind the gull's chair
and signal to his accomplices. Button his
glove—that meant ace; play with his wig
—strong in trumps; touch his solitaire buckle
—weak in diamonds. Each finger implied a
certain number, and was by turns a beacon
or a false light. It was not unfrequent either
to purposely spill wine on the table; and even
that served to reflect the colour and value of
otherwise hidden cards.

Major Oneby was neither the Eagle nor the
Woodpecker. He had sunk into the lowest
of all gamesters—the Bully. He was the blunt
frank old soldier who talked of Marlborough,
by——, sir, and Prince Eugene. He had a gross
humour of his own, and told infamous stories,
when he was not quarrelsome nor dangerous.
He roared and cursed for wine at Will's or
the Mitre, struck the drawers, trod on people's
hats, or kicked their swords as he passed
to his seat. He was the terror of all quiet
and timidly respectable men. He used to clap
his sword on the table, and glance round
defiantly at the company. He would howl out
blasphemies—addressed to no one specially, but
still amounting to a challenge to the fiercest or
bravest man in the room. It was necessary to
his reputation as a terrorist that he should kill a
man now and then, and woe to the young Templar,
vain of his fencing, who that night came in his
way. He volunteered to show the young country
spendthrift the sights of the town. Some evening,
after three or four flasks of wine, the
Deluder pretends, with his own jovial laugh, to be
tired of Garrick and Quin, of Vauxhall and
Ranelagh, of the Mall and the fencing-school,
of the masquerade and the park. Some people
they meet by chance at Will's turn out very
lively acquaintances, with a turn for faro or
chicken hazard. They adjourn to a gambling-
house, and set to work with the dice and the
red and black pips. Mr. Littlebrain, the rich
young gentleman from Somersetshire, at first
wins surprisingly. The gold tide sets in towards
him. They call for more Burgundy. He
insists on higher stakes, astonished to find how
he is startling the old dice-shakers of Covent-
garden. More Burgundy, the room seems to
get lighter and larger, the dice fly out faster
and faster. The tide at last turns, the gold floats
from him in shoals. He has now lost all he had
won and five thousand guineas more, besides the
large farm near Taunton. He has also signed
some papers that a good-natured old lawyer
present requires as securities for the loan of
another thousand, already half gone. Gradually
the fumes of the wine subside, and one suspicious
glance discloses to him the old lawyer
changing a pack of cards which he (novice) had
placed ready at his elbow. He sees a friend make
signs to the benevolent lawyer. Then he feels
into what a pack of wolves he has fallen. In a
moment Littlebrain dashes over his chair, leaps
on a settee, gets down his hat and sword from
the peg behind the door, and shouts "Thieves!"
from the window to the watch, who have just
passed, crying, sleepily:

"Past four, and a rainy morning."

The gang is furious, their eyes glare, they
prepare for a stampedo. The gallant captain,
whose red face, barred with black plaister,
looks like a hot fire seen between the bars of a
grate, sweeps two or three dozen guineas from
the green cloth into his panniers of pockets.
Then some one knocks out the lights, several
swords clash with Littlebrain's, and one passes
through his unlucky body. He staggers to the
stairs, and falls headlong down them—dead.
There is a dash at the watchmen, who threaten
the gamblers with their staves. The old men,
however, fall before the tempestuous charge,
and the next moment there is no one in the
gambling-house but two frightened women, an
old watchman, who is holding the dim lantern
to the dead man's face with one hand, and
removing his watch and purse with the other; the
only sound is the wind whistling through the key-
hole. In such affairs, subtle, cruel, and deadly,.
Major Oneby has been no subordinate actor.

To return to our story. All went on at first
merry and friendly. The flask went round, and
the wit went with it. At last a wager is laid
between Mr. Rich and Mr. Blunt as to whether
Mr. Mills did or did not act the other day the
part of Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's play. Both
gentlemen are opinionated and heated, but one
of the two is of course wrong, and Mr. Blunt
loses. The flask-bottle being empty, Mr. Rich
and the major call for a box and for dice. The
drawer says they have dice but no box. Not
much gambling evidently goes on at the Castle
Tavern. It is only the blunt hearty major
who seems to care much about the matter, but
he is persistent, and his energy forces on the
company to play.

"No dice-box?" he says. "Well, then,
drawer, bring the pepper-box."

Mr. Hawkins, knowing how gambling spoils
good talk and a friendly evening, looks rather
averse to the turn things are taking, and says:

"Let us play low."

And, after a trifling loss, refuses to play
any more. The major turns his gross burly
body at this, and glowers at him with his blood-