“You’ll break the table, sir,” said the servant.
“Damn the table!” said Rex. “Buy ‘nother table. What’s table t’you?” “Oh, certainly, sir,” replied the man.
“Oh, c’ert’nly! Why c’ert’nly? What do you know about it?”
“Oh, certainly not, sir,” replied the man.
“If I had–stockwhip here–I’d make you–hic–skip! Whar’s brandy?”
“Here, Mr. Richard.”
“Have some! Good brandy! Send for servantsh and have dance. D’you dance, Tomkins?”
“No, Mr. Richard.”
“Then you shall dance now, Tomkins. You’ll dance upon nothing one day, Tomkins! Here! Halloo! Mary! Susan! Janet! William! Hey! Halloo!” And he began to shout and blaspheme.
“Don’t you think it’s time for bed, Mr. Richard?” one of the men ventured to suggest.
“No!” roared the ex-convict, emphatically, “I don’t! I’ve gone to bed at daylight far too long. We’ll have ‘luminashon! I’m master here. Master everything. Richard ‘Vine’s my name. Isn’t it, Tomkins, you villain?”
“Oh-h-h! Yes, Mr. Richard.”
“Course it is, and make you know it too! I’m no painter-picture, crockery chap. I’m genelman! Genelman seen the world! Knows what’s what. There ain’t much I ain’t fly to. Wait till the old woman’s dead, Tomkins, and you shall see!” More swearing, and awful threats of what the inebriate would do when he was in possession. “Bring up some brandy!” Crash goes the bottle in the fire-place. “Light up the droring-rooms; we’ll have dance! I’m drunk! What’s that? If you’d gone through what I have, you’d be glad to be drunk. I look a fool”–this to his image in another glass. “I ain’t though, or I wouldn’t be here. Curse you, you grinning idiot”– crash goes his fist through the mirror–“don’t grin at me. Play up there! Where’s old woman? Fetch her out and let’s dance!”
“Lady Devine has gone to bed, Mr. Richard,” cried Tomkins, aghast, attempting to bar the passage to the upper regions.
“Then let’s have her out o’ bed,” cried John Rex, plunging to the door.
Tomkins, attempting to restrain him, is instantly hurled into a cabinet of rare china, and the drunken brute essays the stairs. The other servants seize him. He curses and fights like a demon. Doors bang open, lights gleam, maids hover, horrified, asking if it’s “fire?” and begging for it to be “put out”. The whole house is in an uproar, in the midst of which Lady Devine appears, and looks down upon the scene. Rex catches sight of her; and bursts into blasphemy. She withdraws, strangely terrified; and the animal, torn, bloody, and blasphemous, is at last got into his own apartments, the groom, whose face had been seriously damaged in the encounter, bestowing a hearty kick on the prostrate carcase at parting.
The next morning Lady Devine declined to see her son, though he sent a special apology to her.
“I am afraid I was a little overcome by wine last night,” said he to Tomkins. “Well, you was, sir,” said Tomkins.
“A very little wine makes me quite ill, Tomkins. Did I do anything very violent?”
“You was rather obstropolous, Mr. Richard.”
“Here’s a sovereign for you, Tomkins. Did I say anything?”
“You cussed a good deal, Mr. Richard. Most gents do when they’ve bin –hum–dining out, Mr. Richard.”
“What a fool I am,” thought John Rex, as he dressed. “I shall spoil everything if I don’t take care.” He was right. He was going the right way to spoil everything. However, for this bout he made amends- money soothed the servants’ hall, and apologies and time won Lady Devine’s forgiveness.
“I cannot yet conform to English habits, my dear mother,” said Rex, “and feel at times out of place in your quiet home. I think that–if you can spare me a little money–I should like to travel.”
Lady Devine–with a sense of relief for which she blamed herself–assented, and supplied with letters of credit, John Rex went to Paris.
Fairly started in the world of dissipation and excess, he began to grow reckless. When a young man, he had been singularly free from the vice of drunkenness; turning his sobriety–as he did all his virtues– to vicious account; but he had learnt to drink deep in the loneliness of the bush. Master of a large sum of money, he had intended to spend it as he would have spent it in his younger days. He had forgotten that since his death and burial the world had not grown younger. It was possible that Mr. Lionel Crofton might have discovered some of the old set of fools and knaves with whom he had once mixed. Many of them were alive and flourishing. Mr. Lemoine, for instance, was respectably married in his native island of Jersey, and had already threatened to disinherit a nephew who showed a tendency to dissipation.
But Mr. Lemoine would not care to recognize Mr. Lionel Crofton, the gambler and rake, in his proper person, and it was not expedient that his acquaintance should be made in the person of Richard Devine, lest by some unlucky chance he should recognize the cheat. Thus poor Lionel Crofton was compelled to lie still in his grave, and Mr. Richard Devine, trusting to a big beard and more burly figure to keep his secret, was compelled to begin his friendship with Mr. Lionel’s whilom friends all over again. In Paris and London there were plenty of people ready to become hail-fellow-well-met with any gentleman possessing money. Mr. Richard Devine’s history was whispered in many a boudoir and club-room. The history, however, was not always told in the same way. It was generally known that Lady Devine had a son, who, being supposed to be dead, had suddenly returned, to the confusion of his family. But the manner of his return was told in many ways.
In the first place, Mr. Francis Wade, well-known though he was, did not move in that brilliant circle which had lately received his nephew. There are in England many men of fortune, as large as that left by the old ship-builder, who are positively unknown in that little world which is supposed to contain all the men worth knowing. Francis Wade was a man of mark in his own coterie. Among artists, bric-a-brac sellers, antiquarians, and men of letters he was known as a patron and man of taste. His bankers and his lawyers knew him to be of independent fortune, but as he neither mixed in politics, “went into society”, betted, or speculated in merchandise, there were several large sections of the community who had never heard his name. Many respectable money-lenders would have required “further information” before they would discount his bills; and “clubmen” in general–save, perhaps, those ancient quidnuncs who know everybody, from Adam downwards–had but little acquaintance with him. The advent of Mr. Richard Devine–a coarse person of unlimited means– had therefore chief influence upon that sinister circle of male and female rogues who form the “half-world”. They began to inquire concerning his antecedents, and, failing satisfactory information, to invent lies concerning him. It was generally believed that he was a black sheep, a man whose family kept him out of the way, but who was, in a pecuniary sense, “good” for a considerable sum.
Thus taken upon trust, Mr. Richard Devine mixed in the very best of bad society, and had no lack of agreeable friends to help him to spend money. So admirably did he spend it, that Francis Wade became at last alarmed at the frequent drafts, and urged his nephew to bring his affairs to a final settlement. Richard Devine–in Paris, Hamburg, or London, or elsewhere–could never be got to attack business, and Mr. Francis Wade grew more and more anxious. The poor gentleman positively became ill through the anxiety consequent upon his nephew’s dissipations. “I wish, my dear Richard, that you would let me know what to do,” he wrote. “I wish, my dear uncle, that you would do what you think best,” was his nephew’s reply.
“Will you let Purkiss and Quaid look into the business?” said the badgered Francis.
“I hate lawyers,” said Richard. “Do what you think right.”
Mr. Wade began to repent of his too easy taking of matters in the beginning. Not that he had a suspicion of Rex, but that he had remembered that Dick was always a loose fish. The even current of the dilettante’s life became disturbed. He grew pale and hollow-eyed. His digestion was impaired. He ceased to take the interest in china which the importance of that article demanded. In a word, he grew despondent as to his fitness for his mission in life. Lady Ellinor saw a change in her brother. He became morose, peevish, excitable. She went privately to the family doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. “There is no danger,” said he, “if he is kept quiet; keep him quiet, and he will live for years; but his father died of heart disease, you know.” Lady Ellinor, upon this, wrote a long letter to Mr. Richard, who was at Paris, repeated the doctor’s opinions, and begged him to come over at once. Mr. Richard replied that some horse-racing matter of great importance occupied his attention, but that he would be at his rooms in Clarges Street (he had long ago established a town house) on the 14th, and would “go into matters”. “I have lost a good deal of money lately, my dear mother,” said Mr. Richard, “and the present will be a good opportunity to make a final settlement.” The fact was that John Rex, now three years in undisturbed possession, considered that the moment had arrived for the execution of his grand coup– the carrying off at one swoop of the whole of the fortune he had gambled for.