en, to the
astonishment of all, he was again seen about town, in company with men
of the most equivocal character,--noted gamblers at hells, "Legs of
Newmarket," and others to whom report attributed bolder and more
daring feats of iniquity. While it was a debated point among certain
fashionables of the clubs how far he was to be recognized by them, he
saved them all the difficulty, by passing his most intimate friends
without a bow or the slightest sign of recognition. A stern, repulsive
frown never left his features; and he whose frank, light-hearted
buoyancy had been a proverb, was grave and silent, rarely admitting
anything like an intimacy, and avoiding whatever could be called a
friendship.

After a while he was missed from his accustomed haunts, and it was said
that he had purchased a yacht and amused himself by sea excursions.
Then there came a rumor of his being in the Carlist insurrection in
Spain,--some said with a high command; and afterwards he was seen in
a French voltigeur regiment serving in Africa. From all these varied
accidents of life he came back to London, frequenting, as before, the
same play resorts, and betting sums whose amount often trenched upon the
limits of the bank. If, in his early life, he was a constant loser, now
he invariably won; and he was actually the terror of hell-keepers, whose
superstitious fears of certain "lucky ones" are a well-known portion of
their creed.

As for himself, he seemed to take a kind of fiendish sport in following
up this new turn of fortune. It was like a Nemesis on those who had
worked his ruin. One man in particular, a well-known Jew money-lender
of great wealth, he pursued with all the vindictive perseverance of
revenge. He tracked him from London to Brighton, to Cheltenham, to
Leamington, to Newmarket, to Goodwood; he followed him to Paris, to
Brussels; wherever in any city the man opened a table for play, there
was Broughton sure to be found.

[Illustration: 131]

At last, by way of eluding all pursuit, the Jew went over to Ireland,--a
country where of all others fewest resources for his traffic presented
themselves; and here again, despite change of name and every precaution
of secrecy, Broughton traced him out; and, on the night when I first met
him, he was on his return from a hell on the Quays where he had broken
the bank and arisen a winner of above two thousand pounds.

The peculiar circumstances of that night's adventure are easily told.
He