"I take it you failed to win the hundred pounds, sir?"
[Illustration: "I TAKE IT YOU FAILED TO WIN THE HUNDRED POUNDS, SIR?"]
"I have the hundred pounds; I won it--by losing."
Again he evaded my eye.
"Played, indeed, sir," said I.
"You jolly well won't believe that for long."
Now as he had the hundred pounds, I couldn't fancy what the deuce and
all he meant by such prattle. I was half afraid he might be having me
on, as I have known him do now and again when he fancied he could get
me. I fearfully wanted to ask questions. Again I saw the dark,
absorbed face of the gipsy as he studied my future.
"Rotten shift, life is," now murmured the Honourable George quite as
if he had forgotten me. "If I'd have but put through that Monte Carlo
affair I dare say I'd have chucked the whole business--gone to South
Africa, perhaps, and set up a mine or a plantation. Shouldn't have
come back. Just cut off, and good-bye to this mess. But no capital.
Can't do things without capital. Where these American Johnnies have
the pull of us. Do anything. Nearly do what they jolly well like to.
No sense to money. Stuff that runs blind. Look at the silly beggars
that have it----" On he went quite alarmingly with his tirade. Almost
as violent he was as an ugly-headed chap I once heard ranting when I
went with my brother-in-law to a meeting of the North Brixton Radical
Club.
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