"Going to Italy!" said Classon, as he read from the document which Grog had thrown down before him; "wonderful fellow,--wonderful fellow,--forgets nothing!" muttered he to himself.

"Yes, but he does, though; he has just forgotten four kings and suffered _you_ to count four queens, Master Paul,--a tribute to your agreeability somewhat too costly."

"Even to the travelling-carriage, Kit," resumed Classon, not heeding the sarcasm; "and a more complete thing I never saw in my life. You picked it up at Frankfort."

"Yes, at the Hotel de Russie; got it for two thousand two hundred francs,--it cost ten, six months ago. A quint in spades, and the cards divided; I score thirty-one."

"And when is he to learn that he has succeeded to the title?"

"When he's across the Alps,--when he is out of the land of rouge et noir and roulette; he may know it then, as soon as he pleases. I 'm to join them at Como, or Milan, as I can't well 'show' at Baden, even at this late time of year. Before I come up he 'll have heard all about Lacking-ton's death."

"Will it ever occur to him, Kit, to suspect that you were aware of it?"

"I don't know; perhaps it may," said Grog, doggedly.

"If so, will the impression not lead to a very precarious state of relations between you?"

"Maybe so,--seven hearts and five spades, you are 'capoted.' There, Paul, that doesn't leave so much between us, after all. What if he does suspect it? The world suspects fifty things about me that no man has ever yet dared to lay to my charge. If you and I, Master Paul, were to fret ourselves about the suspicions that are entertained of us, we'd have a pleasant life of it. Your good health."

"To yours, my dear Kit; and may I never drink it in worse tipple would be the only additional pleasure I could suggest to the toast. It is wonderful Madeira!"

"I have had it in the London Docks since the year '81; every bottle of it now, seeing that the vines are ruined in the island, is worth from thirty shillings to five-and-thirty. I won it from Tom Hardiman; he took the invoice out of his pocket-book and flung it across the table to me. 'Grog,' says he, 'when you take it out of bond, mind you ask me to dinner, and give me a bottle of it?' But he's gone, 'toes up,' and so here's to his memory."

"'Drunk in solemn silence,' as the newspapers say," broke in Paul, as he drained his glass.

"Yes," said Davis, eying the wine by the light, "that's a tipple this little inn here is not much accustomed to see under its roof; but if I were to stay a little longer, I 'd make something of this place. They never heard of Harvey's sauce, Chili vinegar, Caviare, Stilton; even Bass and British gin were novelties when I came. There, as well as I can make it up, you are a winner of fifteen naps; there they are."

"Dear me, I fancied I stood safe to come off with a hundred!" said Paul, lugubriously.

"So you did, without counting the points; but you 've lost five hundred and sixty-four,--ay, and a right good thing you 've made of it, Master Paul. I 'd like to know how long it is since you earned such a sum honestly."

Classon sighed heavily as he swept the cash into his pocket, and said, "I'm unable to tell you; my memory grows worse every day."

"When you go back to England, you can always brush it up by the Police sheet,--that's a comfort," said Davis, with a savage laugh.

"And what will the noble Viscount have to spend yearly?" asked Classon, to change the theme.

"Something between eight and ten thousand."

"A snug thing, Kit,--a very snug thing indeed; and I take it that by this time o' day he knows the world pretty well."

"No; nothing of the kind!" said Grog, bluntly; "he's a fool, and must stay a fool!"

"The more luck his, then, to have Christopher Davis for his father-in-law."

"I 'll tell you what's better still, Holy Paul,--to have Lizzy Davis for his wife. _You_ think she's going to make a great match of it because he's the Lord Viscount and she is _my_ daughter; but _I_ tell you, and I 'm ready to maintain it too, I never met the man yet was worthy of her.

There may be girls as handsome, though I never saw them,--there may be others as clever, that I'm no judge of; but this I do know,--that for pluck, real pluck, you 'll not find her equal in Europe. She'd never have married him for his rank; no, if it was a dukedom he had to offer her. She 'd never have taken him for his fortune, if it had been ten times the amount. No, she would n't consent to it, even to take _me_ out of my difficulties and set me all straight with the world, because she fancied that by going on the stage, or some such trumpery, she could have done that just as well. She'd not have had him for himself, for she knows he's a fool, just as well as I do. There was only one thing I found she could n't get over: it was the thought she _dare_ not marry him; that to thrust herself into the station and rank _he_ occupied would be to expose herself to insults that must crush her. It was by a mere chance I discovered that this was a challenge she 'd have rather died than decline. It was for all the world like saying to myself, 'Don't you go into the ring there, Kit Davis; my Lords and the gentlemen don't like it.' 'Don't they? Well, let's see how they'll take it, for I _am_ a-going!' It was _that_ stung her, Paul Classon. _She_ did n't want all those fine people; _she_ did n't care a brass farthing about their ways and their doings! _She_ 'd not have thought it a hard lot in life just to jog on as she is. She did n't want to be called a countess, nor live like one; but when it was hinted to her, that if she _did_ venture amongst them, it would be to be driven back with shame and insult, then her mind was made up at once. Not that she ever confessed as much to me; no, I found out her secret by watching her closely. The day I told her I forget what anecdote about some outrageous piece of insolence played off on some new intruder into the titled class, she suddenly started as if something had stung her, and her eyes glared like a tiger's; then, catching me by the hand, she said, 'Don't tell me these things; they pain me more to hear than real, downright calamities!' That was enough for _me_. I saw her cards, Paul, and I played through them!"

Classon heaved a deep sigh, and was silent.

"What are you sighing over, Paul?" asked Davis, half morosely.

"I was just sorrowing to myself to think how little all her pluck will avail her."

"Stuff and nonsense, sir! It is the very thing to depend on in the struggle."

"Ay, if there were a struggle, Kit, but that is exactly what there will not be. You, for instance, go into Brookes's to-morrow, you have been duly elected. It was a wet day, only a few at the ballot, and somehow you got in. Well, you are, to all intents, as much a member as his Grace there, or the noble Marquis. There's no commotion, no stir when you enter the room. The men at their newspapers look up, perhaps, but they read away immediately with only increased attention; the group at the window talks on too; the only thing noticeable is that nobody talks to _you_. If you ask for the 'Globe' or the 'Chronicle,' when the reader shall have finished, he politely hands it at once, and goes away."

"If he did, I'd follow him--"

"What for?--to ask an explanation where there had been no offence?

To make yourself at once notorious in the worst of all possible ways?

There's nothing so universally detested as the man that makes a 'row;'

witness the horror all well-bred people feel at associating with Americans, they're never sure how it's to end. Now, if all these considerations have their weight with men, imagine how they mast be regarded by women, fifty times more exacting as they are in all the exigencies of station, and whose freemasonry is a hundred times more exclusive."

"That's all rot!" broke in Davis, his passion the more violent as the arguments of the other seemed so difficult to answer. "You think to puzzle _me_ by talking of all these grand people and their ways as if they weren't all men and women. That they are, and a rum lot, too, some of them! Come," cried Davis, suddenly, as though a happy thought had just flashed across his mind, "it was the turn of a straw one day, by your own account, that you were not a bishop. Now, I 'd like to know, if that lucky event had really taken place, wouldn't you have been the same Holy Paul Classon that sits there?"

"Perhaps not, entirely," said Classon, in his oiliest of voices. "I trust that I should, in ascending to that exalted station, have cast off the slough of an inferior existence, and carried up little of my former self except the friendships of my early years."

"Do you fancy, Master Paul, that gammon like this can impose upon a man of my sort?"

"My dear and worthy friend," rejoined Classon, "the tone in which I appeal to you is my tribute to your high ability. To an inferior man I had spoken very different language. Sentiments are not the less real that they are expressed with a certain embroidery, just as a Bank post-bill would be very good value though a Choctaw Indian might deem it a piece of waste-paper."

"I 'd like to see you try it on with Lizzy in this fashion," said Davis.

"I don't think even your friend the Choctaw Indian would save you."

"I should be proud of even defeat at such hands!" exclaimed Paul, rapturously.

"You 'd have little to be proud of when she 'd have done with you,"

cried Grog, all his good-humor restored by the mere thought of his daughter.

"Have you spoken to his Lordship about what I mentioned?" said Paul, half diffidently.

"No," said Grog; "on reflection, I thought it better not. I 'm sure, besides, that there's no Church preferment in his gift; and then, Classon, he knows you, as who does not?"

"'Quae regio terrae non plena est?' Ay, Grog, you and I have arrived at what the world calls Fame."

"Speak for yourself, sir; I acknowledge no partnership in the case. When I have written letters, they have not been begging ones; and when I have stretched out my hand, there was no pistol in the palm of it!"

"Very true, Kit; _I_ never had a soul above petty larceny, and _you_ had a spirit that aspired to transportation for life."

Davis bounded on his chair, and glowered with a fearful stare at the speaker, who meanwhile drained the decanter into his glass with an unmoved serenity.

"Don't be angry, my ancient friend," said he, blandly. "The cares of friendship, like the skill of a surgeon, must often pain to be serviceable. Happy let us call ourselves when no ruder hand wields the probe or the bistoury!"

"Make an end of canting, I want to speak to you about matters of moment.

You will set out to-day, I hope."

"Immediately after the marriage."