QUITE ALONE.

BOOK THE FIRST: CHILDHOOD.

CHAPTER XIV. AT GAMRIDGE'S.

It was very late, or rather very early, and
Gamridge's was in full conclave. There was
laughing, and there was swearing; bets were
laid, and taken, and booked; stories were told;
and jokes were created; and scandals were, not
covertly buzzed, but openly roared about. There
was much sincerity at Gamridge's, towards two
in the morning. A few of the dandies were
drunk, and their candour was, consequently,
comprehensible; but others, older and more
seasoned vessels, were quite as sincere, being
simply cynical. They did not, perhaps, wear
their hearts upon their sleeves, the majority of
the possible wearers not being troubled with
centres of vitality; but they wore, instead, an
impudent glorying in unholy lives, an insolent
contempt for all that was good or pure— or
stupid— which was the Gamridgean synonyme
for goodness and purity; a bold, defiant, almost
chivalrous, and completely diabolical pride—
pride of birth, pride of rank, pride of person,
pride of dress, pride of intellect (there were
some fools there, certainly, and they were proud
of their folly, and plumed themselves upon
their drawl or their lisp), pride, in fine, of the
power of doing evil, and of impunity in wrong-
doing. When a very vicious man has very good
health, he becomes, indeed, the roaring lion,
raging up and down, and seeking whom he may
devour. It is only when his constitution is
impaired, and his limbs grow shaky, that he begins
to crawl in the dust, like a serpent, and wind his
body round trees, aud whisper counsels full of
perdition to the silly.

So, most present spoke their minds at
Gamridge's. There was no concealment.
Everybody was as bad as his neighbour. At two
o'clock in the morning there was no need for
concealment. In the daytime, at the clubs, at
Chiswick, in the parks, at the theatres, you saw
the beautiful Gobelins tapestry, marvellous in
the minute finish of its work, suffused with
glowing yet tender tints. But at two o'clock in
the morning, at Gamridge's, the tapestry was
turned up and pinned against the wall. You
saw the reverse of the picture you saw what
was behind the exquisite work and the glowing
tints. A lamentable arras indeed: full of knots,
and loops, and cobbles, and darns, and frayed
ends of dirty worsted protruding from a coarse
canvas ground.

A roar of acclaim broke forth as Blunt entered
the room. He was a great favourite among the
dandies. The famous marquis of those days
thrust forward his shoulder-of-muttton palm and
squeezed Blunt's delicate hand. Francis Blunt,
Esquire, was, perhaps, the only frequenter of
Gamridge's who kept his mask on at two o'clock
in the morning.

The dandies crowded round him, for he had
a renown for saying things which, if not brilliantly
clever, were at least spiteful, and consequently
amusing. However, Mr. Blunt was, this morning, in
no mood for venting epigrams or retailing
scandalous anecdotes. He could ill conceal his
preoccupation.

"Is Debonnair here?" he asked.

"Been here these two hours," answered the
colleague he addressed, Captain Langhorne, of
the Guards. "Been drinking oceans of soda-
and-B., and getting very spooney. Mounthawkington
says he's in love. I say it's lush."

In the reign of King William the Fourth the
aristocracy were not ashamed to use habitually
the language of costermongers. In these days,
the writer believes, the superior orders never
soil their lips with slang terms.

"Will he play?" Blunt whispered to the
Guardsman.

"Whom d'ye mean? Mounthawkington?"

"He play? A hurdy-gurdy, perhaps. I don't
mean him. He's not worth playing beggar-my-
neighbour with, for my neighbour, Mounthawkiiigton,
is beggared already. I mean Debonnair."

"I tell you he's spooney. He'd do anything
you told him to do. He is the soft and verdant
spinach, and sighs for the due accompaniment
of gammon. If you stretched a tight rope across
the room he'd dance upon it like Madame Saqui
—till he tumbled off tipsy. He's game to play
anything, from blind hookey up to chicken hazard.
He's very spooney, and decidedly sprung."

"Will you see that he doesn't drink too
much? Keep him off champagne. It'll drive
him mad. Keep him on his soda-and-B. That
won't do him any harm."

"Do you want him, then, that you're so very
anxious about his precious health?"