‘Of course not.’
‘Couldn’t, you know, as a man of honour; but I made up for all that,’ said Pogson, winking slily, and putting his hand to his little bunch of a nose, in a very knowing way.
‘You did, and how?’
‘Why, you dog, I sat next to her; sat in the middle the whole way, and my back’s half broke, I can tell you:’ and thus having depicted his happiness, we soon reached the inn where this back-broken young man was to lodge during his stay in Paris.
The next day, at five, we met; Mr. Pogson had seen his Baroness, and described her lodgings, in his own expressive way, as ‘slap-up.’ She had received him quite like an old friend; treated him to eau sucrée, of which beverage he expressed himself a great admirer: and actually asked him to dine the next day. But there was a cloud over the ingenuous youth’s brow, and I inquired still further.
‘Why,’ said he, with a sigh, ‘I thought she was a widow; and, hang it! who should come in but her husband the Baron; a big fellow, sir, with a blue coat, a red ribbing, and such a pair of mustachios!’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘he didn’t turn you out, I suppose?’
‘Oh no! on the contrary, as kind as possible; his lordship said that he respected the English army; asked me what corps I was in—said he had fought in Spain against us—and made me welcome.’
‘What could you want more?’
Mr. Pogson at this only whistled; and if some very profound observer of human nature had been there to read into this little bagman’s heart, it would, perhaps, have been manifest, that the appearance of a whiskered soldier of a husband had counteracted some plans that the young scoundrel was concocting.
I live up a hundred and thirty-seven steps in the remote quarter of the Luxembourg, and it is not to be expected that such a fashionable fellow as Sam Pogson, with his pockets full of money, and a new city to see, should be always wandering to my dull quarters; so that, although he did not make his appearance for some time, he must not be accused of any lukewarmness of friendship on that score.
He was out, too, when I called at his hotel; but once I had the good fortune to see him, with his hat curiously on one side, looking as pleased as Punch, and being driven, in an open cab, in the Champs Élysées. ‘That’s another tiptop chap,’ said he, when we met, at length. ‘What do you think of an Earl’s son, my boy? Honourable Tom Ringwood, son of the Earl of Cinqbars: what do you think of that, eh?’
I thought he was getting into very good society. Sam was a dashing fellow, and was always above his own line of life; he had met Mr. Ringwood at the Baron’s, and they’d been to the play together; and the honourable gent, as Sam called him, had joked with him about being well-to-do in a certain quarter; and he had had a game of billiards with the Baron, at the Estaminy, ‘a very distangy place, where you smoke,’ said Sam; ‘quite select, and frequented by the tiptop nobility;’ and they were as thick as peas in a shell; and they were to dine that day at Ringwood’s, and sup, the next night, with the Baroness.
‘I think the chaps down the road will stare,’ said Sam, ‘when they hear how I’ve been coming it.’ And stare, no doubt, they would; for it is certain that very few commercial gentlemen have had Mr. Pogson’s advantages.
The next morning we had made an arrangement to go out shopping together, and to purchase some articles of female gear, that Sam intended to bestow on his relations when he returned. Seven needle-books, for his sisters; a gilt buckle, for his mamma; a handsome French cashmere shawl and bonnet, for his aunt (the old lady keeps an inn in the Borough, and has plenty of money, and no heirs); and a toothpick case, for his father. Sam is a good fellow to all his relations, and as for his aunt, he adores her. Well, we were to go and make these purchases, and I arrived punctually at my time; but Sam was stretched on a sofa, very pale and dismal.
I saw how it had been.—‘A little too much of Mr. Ringwood’s claret, I suppose?’
He only gave a sickly stare.
‘Where does the Honourable Tom live?’ says I.
‘Honourable!’ says Sam, with a hollow horrid laugh; ‘I tell you, Dick, he’s no more Honourable than you are.’
‘What, an impostor?’
‘No, no; not that. He is a real Honourable, only—’
‘Oh, ho! I smell a rat—a little jealous, eh?’
‘Jealousy be hanged! I tell you he’s a thief; and the Baron’s a thief; and, hang me, if I think his wife is any better. Eight-and-thirty pounds he won of me before supper; and made me drunk, and sent me home:—is that honourable? How can I afford to lose forty pounds? It’s took me two years to save it up:—if my old aunt gets wind of it, she’ll cut me off with a shilling: hang me!’—and here Sam, in an agony, tore his fair hair.
While bewailing his lot in this lamentable strain, his bell was rung, which signal being answered by a surly ‘Come in,’ a tall, very fashionable gentleman, with a fur coat, and a fierce tuft to his chin, entered the room. ‘Pogson, my buck, how goes it?’ said he familiarly, and gave a stare at me: I was making for my hat.
‘Don’t go,’ said Sam, rather eagerly; and I sat down again.
The Honourable Mr. Ringwood hummed and ha’d: and, at last, said he wished to speak to Mr. Pogson on business, in private, if possible.
‘There’s no secrets betwixt me and my friend,’ cried Sam.
Mr. Ringwood paused a little:—’ An awkward business that of last night,’ at length exclaimed he.
‘I believe it was an awkward business,’ said Sam drily.
‘I really am very sorry for your losses.’
‘Thank you: and so am I, I can tell you,’ said Sam.
‘You must mind, my good fellow, and not drink; for, when you drink, you will play high: by Gad, you led us in, and not we you.’
‘I dare say,’ answered Sam, with something of peevishness; ‘losses is losses: there’s no use talking about ’em when they’re over and paid.’
‘And paid?’ here wonderingly spoke Mr. Ringwood; ‘why, my dear fel—— what the deuce—has Florval been with you?’
‘D——Florval!’ growled Tom, ‘I’ve never set eyes on his face since last night; and never wish to see him again.’
‘Come, come, enough of this talk; how do you intend to settle the bills which you gave him last night?’
‘Bills! what do you mean?’
‘I mean, sir, these bills,’ said the Honourable Tom, producing two out of his pocket-book, and looking as stern as a lion. ‘ “I promise to pay, on demand, to the Baron de Florval, the sum of four hundred pounds. October 20, 1838.” “Ten days after date I promise to pay the Baron de et cætera, et cætera, one hundred and ninety-eight pounds. Samuel Pogson.” You didn’t say what regiment you were in.’
‘What!’ shouted poor Sam, as from a dream, starting up, and looking preternaturally pale and hideous.
‘D—— it, sir, you don’t affect ignorance: you don’t pretend not to remember that you signed these bills, for money lost in my rooms: money lent to you, by Madame de Melval, at your own request, and lost to her husband? You don’t suppose, sir, that I shall be such an infernal idiot as to believe you, or such a coward as to put up with a mean subterfuge of this sort? Will you, or will you not, pay the money, sir?’
‘I will not,’ said Sam stoutly; ‘it’s a d——d swin——’
Here Mr. Ringwood sprang up,