They guessed at my weight.  They betted upon it.  And they wished to know if I could spin Mr. Brooks, who was scraping his way from table to table.  They gave me choice of whist, or picquet, or quinze, or hazard.  I was carried away.  Nay, I make no excuse.  Tho’ the times were drinking and gaming ones, I had been brought up that a gentleman should do both in moderation.  We mounted, some dozen of us, to the floor above, and passed along to a room of which Fox had the key; and he swung me in on his arm, the others pressing after.  And the door was scarce closed and locked again, before they began stripping off their clothes.

To my astonishment, Fox handed me a great frieze coat, which he bade me don, as the others were doing.  Some were turning their coats inside out; for luck, said they; and putting on footman’s leather guards to save their ruffles.  And they gave me a hat with a high crown, and a broad brim to save my eyes from the candle glare.  We were as grotesque a set as ever I laid my eyes upon.  But I hasten over the scene; which has long become distasteful to me.  I mention it only to show to what heights of folly the young men had gone.  I recall a gasp when they told me they played for rouleaux of ten pounds each, but I took out my pocket-book as boldly as tho’ I had never played for less, and laid my stake upon the board.  Fox lost, again and again; but he treated his ill-luck with such a raillery of contemptuous wit, that we must needs laugh with him.  Comyn, too, lost, and at supper excused himself, saying that he had promised his mother, the dowager countess, not to lose more than a quarter’s income at a sitting.  But I won and won, until the fever of it got into my blood, and as the first faint light of that morning crept into the empty streets, we were still at it, Fox vowing that he never waked up until daylight.  That the best things he said in the House came to him at dawn.

CHAPTER XXXII

LADY TANKERVILLE’S DRUM-MAJOR

The rising sun, as he came through the little panes of the windows, etched a picture of that room into my brain.  I can see the twisted candles with their wax smearing the sticks, the chairs awry, the tables littered with blackened pipes, and bottles, and spilled wine and tobacco among the dice; and the few that were left of my companions, some with dark lines under their eyes, all pale, but all gay, unconcerned, witty, and cynical; smoothing their ruffles, and brushing the ashes and snuff from the pattern of their waistcoats.  As we went downstairs, singing a song Mr. Foote had put upon the stage that week, they were good enough to declare that I should never be permitted to go back to Maryland.  That my grandfather should buy me a certain borough, which might be had for six thousand pounds.

The drawing-room made a dismal scene, too, after the riot and disorder of the night.  Sleepy servants were cleaning up, but Fox vowed that they should bring us yet another bottle before going home.  So down we sat about the famous old round table, Fox fingering the dents the gold had made in the board, and philosophizing; and reciting Orlando Furioso in the Italian, and Herodotus in the original Greek.  Suddenly casting his eyes about, they fell upon an ungainly form stretched on a lounge, that made us all start.