ng occurrence must have caused a 'sensation' to poor
Brummell.

Among the members of Wattier's Club was Bligh, a notorious madman, of
whom Mr Raikes relates:--'One evening at the Macao table, when the play
was very deep, Brummell, having lost a considerable stake, affected, in
his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out--"Waiter, bring me
a flat candlestick and a pistol." Upon which Bligh, who was sitting
opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat
pocket, which he placed on the table, and said, "Mr Brummell, if you are
really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy
to offer you the means without troubling the waiter." The effect upon
those present may easily be imagined, at finding themselves in the
company of a known madman who had loaded weapons about him.'

Brummell was at last completely beggared, though for some time he
continued to hold on by the help of funds raised on the mutual security
of himself and his friends, some of whom were not in a much more
flourishing condition than himself; their names, however, and still
more, their expectations, lent a charm to their bills, in the eyes of
the usurers, and money was procured, of course at ruinous interest. It
is said that some unpleasant circumstances, connected with the division
of one of these loans, occasioned the Beau's expatriation, and that a
personal altercation took place between Brummell and a certain Mr M--,
when that gentleman accused him of taking the lion's share.

He died in utter poverty, and an idiot, at Caen, in the year 1840, aged
62 years. Brummell had a very odd way of accounting for the sad change
which took place in his affairs. He said that up to a particular period
of his life everything prospered with him, and that he attributed good
luck to the possession of a certain silver sixpence with a hole in it,
which somebody had given him years before, with an injunction to take
good care of it, as everything would go well with him so long as he
did, and the reverse if he happened to lose it. The promised prosperity
attended him for many years, whilst he held the sixpence fast; but
having at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake
to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune
ensued, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to
expatriate himself. 'On my asking him,' says the narrator, 'why he did
not advertise and offer a reward for t