“And if you will,” said I, seeing some reluctance on Fitz.’s part to take the wager, and getting emboldened in consequence, “let the judgment be pronounced over a couple of dozen of champaigne, paid by the loser.”

This was a coup d’etat on my part, for I knew at once there were so many parties to benefit by the bet, terminate which way it might, there could be no possibility of evading it.  My ruse succeeded, and poor Fitzgerald, fairly badgered into a wager, the terms of which he could not in the least comprehend, was obliged to sign the conditions inserted in the adjutant’s note-book—­his greatest hope in so doing being in the quantity of wine he had seen me drink during the evening.  As for myself, the bet was no sooner made than I began to think upon the very little chance I had of winning it; for even supposing my success perfect in the department allotted to me, it might with great reason be doubted what peculiar benefit I myself derived as a counterbalance to the fee of the doctor.  For this, my only trust lay in the justice of a decision which I conjectured would lean more towards the goodness of a practical joke than the equity of the transaction.  The party at mess soon after separated, and I wished my friend good night for the last time before meeting him as a bride-groom.

I arranged every thing in order for my start.  My pistol-case I placed conspicuously before me, to avoid being forgotten in the haste of departure; and, having ordered my servant to sit up all night in the guard-room until he heard the carriage at the barrack-gate, threw myself on my bed, but not to sleep.  The adventure I was about to engage in suggested to my mind a thousand associations, into which many of the scenes I have already narrated entered.  I thought how frequently I had myself been on the verge of that state which Curzon was about to try, and how it always happened that when nearest to success, failure had intervened.  From my very school-boy days my love adventures had the same unfortunate abruptness in their issue; and there seemed to be something very like a fatality in the invariable unsuccess of my efforts at marriage.  I feared, too, that my friend Curzon had placed himself in very unfortunate hands—­if augury were to be relied upon.  Something will surely happen, thought I, from my confounded ill luck, and all will be blown up.  Wearied at last with thinking I fell into a sound sleep for about three-quarters of an hour, at the end of which I was awoke by my servant informing me that a chaise and four were drawn up at the end of the barrack lane.

“Why, surely, they are too early, Stubber?  It’s only four o’clock.”

“Yes, sir; but they say that the road for eight miles is very bad, and they must go it almost at a walk.”

That is certainly pleasant, thought I, but I’m in for it now, so can’t help it.

In a few minutes I was up and dressed, and so perfectly transformed by the addition of a brown scratch-wig and large green spectacles, and a deep-flapped waistcoat, that my servant, on re-entering my room, could not recognise me.  I followed him now across the barrack-yard, as, with my pistol-case under one arm and a lantern in his hand, he proceeded to the barrack-gate.