he very lowest of
all motives, and the meanest of all ambitions. Enough that I tell the
result. After a long course of defeats and disasters, I rose, not only
clear of all my debts, but a winner of two hundred pounds.

The Prince heartily congratulated me on my good fortune, saying that
none could better deserve it. He complimented me much on my play, but
still more on my admirable temper as a loser,--a quality which, he
added, he never could lay claim to.

"I'm a bad beaten man, but you are the very reverse," said he. "Dine
with me on Saturday, and I hope to see how you'll comport yourself as a
winner."

I had but time to bow my humble acknowledgment of this gracious speech,
when O'Kelly came up, saying,--

"So Canthorpe tells me you beat him, after all; but I always knew how it
would end,--play must and will tell in the long run."

"Non numen habes si sit Prudentia,--eh, O'Kelly?" said Conway.

"Prudentia means the ace of trumps, then," said Sheridan.

"Where shall I send you my debt?" said Canthorpe to me, in a whisper.
"What's your club?"

"He's only just arrived in town," interrupted O'Kelly; "but I intend to
put him up for Brooke's on Wednesday, and will ask you to second him.
You 're on the committee, I think?"

"Yes; and I 'll do it with great pleasure," said Canthorpe.

"I'll settle your score for you," said O'Kelly to Canthorpe; and now,
with much handshaking and cordiality, the party broke up.

"Don't go for a moment," said O'Kelly to me, as he passed to accompany
the Prince downstairs. I sat down before the fire in the now deserted
room, and, burying my head between my hands, I endeavored to bring my
thoughts to something like order and discipline. It was to no use; the
whirlwind of emotions I had endured still raged within me, and I could
not satisfy myself which of all my characters was the real one. Was
I the outcast, destitute and miserable? or was I the friend of the
high-born, and the associate of a Prince? Where was this to end? Should
I awake to misery on the morrow, or was madness itself to be the issue
to this strange dream? Heaven forgive me if I almost wished it might be
so, and if in my abject terror I would have chosen the half-unconscious
existence of insanity to the sense of shame and self-upbraiding my
future seemed to menace!

While I sat thus, O'Kelly entered, and, having locked the door after
him, took his place beside me. I was not aware of his presence till he
said,--