to be found on the roads, or in casual wards, or lounging about
low skittle-alleys and bagatelle or billiard tables--he will allude to
the gambling that went on in the regiment. "How could a youngster keep
out of the swim?" All went well with him until he took to late hours and
devilled bones; "then in the mornings we were all ready for a peg; and I
should like to see the man who could get ready for parade after a hard
night unless he had something in the shape of a reviver." So he prates
on. He curses the colonel, the commander-in-chief, and the Army
organization in general; he gives leering reminiscences of garrison
belles--reminiscences that make a pure minded man long to inflict some
sort of chastisement on him; and thus, while he thinks he is impressing
you with an overpowering sense of his bygone rank and fashion, he really
unfolds the history of a feeble unworthy fellow who carries a strong
tinge of rascality about him. He is always a victim, and he illustrates
the unvarying truth of the maxim that a dupe is a rogue minus
cleverness. The final crash which overwhelmed him was of course a
horse-racing blunder. He would have recovered his winter's losses had
not a gang of thieves tampered with the favourite for the City and
Suburban. "Do you think, sir, that Highflyer could not have given
Stonemason three stone and a beating?" You modestly own your want of
acquaintance with the powers of the famous quadrupeds, and the
infatuated dupe goes on, "I saw how Bill Whipcord was riding; he eased
at the corner, when I wouldn't have taken two thousand for my bets, and
you could see that he let Stonemason up. I had taken seven to four eight
times in hundreds, and that broke me." The ragged raffish man never
thinks that he was quite ready to plunder other people; he grows
inarticulate with rage only when he remembers how he was bitten instead
of being the biter. His watery eyes slant as you near a roadside inn,
and he is certain to issue an invitation. Then you see what really
brought him low. It may be a lovely warm day, when the acrid reek of
alcohol is more than usually abhorrent; but he must take something
strong that will presently inflame the flabby bulge of his cheeks and
set his evil eyes watering more freely than ever. Gin is his favourite
refreshment, because it is cheap, and produces stupefaction more rapidly
than any other liquid. Very probably he will mix gin and ale in one
horrid draught--and in that case you know t