But I was mistaken in my calculations regarding him, as his history of himself speedily showed me.  ‘I have been beaten about the world,’ said he, ’ever since the year 1742, when my brother your father (and Heaven forgive him) cut my family estate from under my heels, by turning heretic, in order to marry that scold of a mother of yours.  Well, let bygones be bygones.  ’Tis probable that I should have run through the little property as he did in my place, and I should have had to begin a year or two later the life I have been leading ever since I was compelled to leave Ireland.  My lad, I have been in every service; and, between ourselves, owe money in every capital in Europe.  I made a campaign or two with the Pandours under Austrian Trenck.  I was captain in the Guard of His Holiness the Pope, I made the campaign of Scotland with the Prince of Wales—­a bad fellow, my dear, caring more for his mistress and his brandy-bottle than for the crowns of the three kingdoms.  I have served in Spain and in Piedmont; but I have been a rolling stone, my good fellow.  Play—­ play has been my ruin; that and beauty’ (here he gave a leer which made him, I must confess, look anything but handsome; besides, his rouged cheeks were all beslobbered with the tears which he had shed on receiving me).  ’The women have made a fool of me, my dear Redmond.  I am a soft-hearted creature, and this minute, at sixty-two, have no more command of myself than when Peggy O’Dwyer made a fool of me at sixteen.’

‘’Faith sir,’ says I, laughing, ‘I think it runs in the family!’ and described to him, much to his amusement, my romantic passion for my cousin, Nora Brady.  He resumed his narrative.

’The cards now are my only livelihood.  Sometimes I am in luck, and then I lay out my money in these trinkets you see.  It’s property, look you, Redmond; and the only way I have found of keeping a little about me.  When the luck goes against me, why, my dear, my diamonds go to the pawnbrokers, and I wear paste.  Friend Moses the goldsmith will pay me a visit this very day; for the chances have been against me all the week past, and I must raise money for the bank to-night.  Do you understand the cards?’

I replied that I could play as soldiers do, but had no great skill.

‘We will practise in the morning, my boy,’ said he, ’and I’ll put you up to a thing or two worth knowing.’

Of course I was glad to have such an opportunity of acquiring knowledge, and professed myself delighted to receive my uncle’s instruction.

The Chevalier’s account of himself rather disagreeably affected me.  All his show was on his back, as he said.  His carriage, with the fine gilding, was a part of his stock in trade.  He had a sort of mission from the Austrian Court:—­it was to discover whether a certain quantity of alloyed ducats which had been traced to Berlin, were from the King’s treasury.  But the real end of Monsieur de Balibari was play.  There was a young