"If Sir Spencer Cavendish has no objection,--if he would permit his groom to drive me just down the Boulevards and the Rue Rivoli--"

The cool stare of the baronet did not permit him to finish. It was really a look far more intelligible than common observers might have imagined, for it conveyed something like recognition,--a faint approach to an intimation that said, "I 'm persuaded that we have met before."

"Yes, that is the best plan. Let the groom have the ribbons," said Martin, laughing with an almost schoolboy enjoyment of a trick. "And don't lose time, Merl, for Sir Spencer would n't miss his drive in the Champs Elysees for any consideration."

"Gentlemen, I am your very humble and much obliged servant!" said Cavendish, as soon as Merl had quitted the room. "If that distinguished friend of yours should not buy my carriage--"

"But he will," broke in Martin; "he must buy it."

"He ought, I think," said Lord Claude. "If I were in his place, there's only one condition I 'd stipulate for."

"And that is--"

"That you should drive with him one day--one would be enough--from the Barriere de l'etoile to the Louvre."

"This is all very amusing, gentlemen, most entertaining," said Cavendish, tartly; "but who is he?--I don't mean that,--but what is he?"

"Martin's banker, I fancy," said Lord Claude.

"Does he lend any sum from five hundred to twenty thousand on equitable terms on approved personal security?" said Cavendish, imitating the terms of the advertis.e.m.e.nts.

"He 'll allow all he wins from you to remain in your hands at sixty per cent interest, if he doesn't want cash!" said Martin, angrily.

"Oh, then, I 'm right. It is my little Moses of St. James's Street. He was n't always as flourishing as we see him now. Oh dear, if any man, three years back, had told me that this fellow would have proposed seating himself in my phaeton for a drive round Paris, I don't believe--nay, I 'm sure--my head couldn't have stood it."

"You know him, then?" said Willoughby.

"I should think every man about town a dozen years ago must know him.

There was a kind of brood of these fellows; we used to call them Joseph and his brethren. One sold cigars, another vended maraschino; this discounted your bills, that took your plate or your horses--ay, or your wardrobe--on a bill of sale, and handed you over two hundred pounds to lose at his brother's h.e.l.l in the evening. Most useful scoundrels they were,--equally expert on 'Change and in the Coulisses of the Opera!"

"I will say this for him," said Martin, "he 's not a hard fellow to deal with; he does not drive a bargain ungenerously."

"Your hangman is the tenderest fellow in the world," said Cavendish, "till the final moment. It's only in adjusting the last turn under the ear that he shows himself 'ungenerous.'"

"Are you deep with him, Harry?" said Willoughby, who saw a sudden paleness come over Martin's face.

"Too deep!" said he, with a bitter effort at a laugh,--"a great deal too deep."

"We 're all too deep with those fellows," said Cavendish, as, stretching out his legs, he contemplated the shape and l.u.s.tre of his admirably fitting boots. "One begins by some trumpery loan or so; thence you go on to a play transaction or a betting-book with them, and you end--egad, you end by having the fellow at dinner!"

"Martin wants his friend to be put up for the Club," said Willoughby.

"Eh, what? At the 'Cercle,' do you mean?"

"Why not? Is it so very select?"

"No, not exactly that; there are the due proportions of odd reputations, half reputations, and no reputations; but remember, Martin, that however black they be now, they all began white. When they started, at least, they were gentlemen."

"I suspect that does not make the case much better."

"No; but it makes _ours_ better, in a.s.sociating with them. Come, come, you know as well as any one that this is impossible, and that if you should do it to-day, I should follow the lead to-morrow, and our Club become only an asylum for unpayable tailors and unappeasable bootmakers!"

"You go too fast, sir," exclaimed Martin, in a tone of anger. "I never intended to pay my debts by a white ball in the ballot-box, nor do I think that Mr. Merl would relinquish his claim on some thousand pounds, even for the honor of being the club colleague of Sir Spencer Cavendish."

"Then I know him better," said the other, tapping his-boot with his cane; "he would, and he 'd think it a right good bargain besides. From seeing these fellows at racecourses and betting-rooms, always cold, calm, and impa.s.sive, never depressed by ill-luck, as little elated by good, we fall into the mistake of esteeming them as a kind of philosophers in life, without any of those detracting influences that make you and Willoughby, and even myself, sometimes rash and headstrong.

It is a mistake, though; they have a weakness,--and a terrible weakness,--which is, their pa.s.sion to be thought in fashionable society.

Yes, they can't resist that! All their shrewd calculations, all their artful schemes, dissolve into thin air, at the bare prospect of being recognized 'in society.' I have studied this flaw in them for many a year back. I 'll not say I haven't derived advantage from it."

"And yet you 'd refuse him admission into a club," cried Martin.

"Certainly. A club is a Democracy, where each man, once elected, is the equal of his neighbor. Society is, on the other hand, an absolute monarchy, where your rank flows from the fountain of honor,--the host.

Take him along with you to her Grace's 'tea,' or my Lady's reception this evening, and see if the manner of the mistress of the house does not a.s.sign him his place, as certainly as if he were marshalled to it by a lackey. All his mock tranquillity and a.s.sumed ease of manner will not be proof against the icy dignity of a grande dame; but in the Club he's as good as the best, or he'll think so, which comes to the same thing."

"Cavendish is right,--that is, as much so as he can be in anything,"

said Willoughby, laughing. "Don't put him up, Martin."

"Then what am I to do? I have given a sort of a pledge. He is not easily put off; he does not lightly relinquish an object."

"Take him off the scent. Introduce him at the Emba.s.sy. Take him to the Courcelles."

"This is intolerable," broke in Martin, angrily. "I ask for advice, and you reply by a sneer and a mockery."

"Not at all. I never was more serious. But here he comes! Look only how the fellow lolls back in the phaeton. Just see how contemptuously he looks down on the foot-travellers. I'd lay on another hundred for that stare; for, a.s.suredly, he has already made the purchase in his own mind."

"Well, Merl, what do you say to Sir Spencer's taste in horseflesh?" said Martin, as he entered.

"They 're nice hacks; very smart."

"Nice hacks!" broke in Cavendish, "why, sir, they're both thoroughbred; the near horse is by Tiger out of a Crescent mare, and the off one won the Acton steeple-chase. When you said hacks, therefore, you made a cruel blunder."

"Well, it's what a friend of mine called them just now," said Merl; "and remarked, moreover, that the large horse had been slightly fired on the--the--I forget the name he gave it."

"You probably remember your friend's name better," said Cavendish, sneeringly. "Who was he, pray?"

"Ma.s.singbred,--we call him Jack Ma.s.singbred; he's the Member for somewhere in Ireland."

"Poor Jack!" muttered Cavendish, "how hard up he must be!"

"But you like the equipage, Merl?" said Martin, who had a secret suspicion that it was now Cavendish's turn for a little humiliation.

"Well, it's neat. The buggy--"

"The buggy! By Jove, sir, you have a precious choice of epithets! Please to let me inform you that full-blooded horses are not called hacks, nor one of Leader's park-phaetons is not styled a buggy."

Martin threw himself into a chair, and after a moment's struggle, burst out into a fit of laughter.

"I think we may make a deal after all, Sir Spencer," said Merl, who accepted the baronet's correction with admirable self-control.