his brandy bottle beneath
his pillow, he could hardly have been happy. But he was not a man to
say much about his misery. Though he could restrain neither himself
nor his heir, he could endure in silence; and in silence he did
endure, till, opening his eyes to the consciousness of death, he at
last spoke a few words to the only friend he knew.

Louis Scatcherd was not a fool, nor was he naturally, perhaps, of a
depraved disposition; but he had to reap the fruits of the worst
education which England was able to give him. There were moments in
his life when he felt that a better, a higher, nay, a much happier
career was open to him than that which he had prepared himself to
lead. Now and then he would reflect what money and rank might have
done for him; he would look with wishful eyes to the proud doings of
others of his age; would dream of quiet joys, of a sweet wife, of a
house to which might be asked friends who were neither jockeys nor
drunkards; he would dream of such things in his short intervals of
constrained sobriety; but the dream would only serve to make him
moody.

This was the best side of his character; the worst, probably, was
that which was brought into play by the fact that he was not a fool.
He would have a better chance of redemption in this world--perhaps
also in another--had he been a fool. As it was, he was no fool: he
was not to be done, not he; he knew, no one better, the value of
a shilling; he knew, also, how to keep his shillings, and how to
spend them. He consorted much with blacklegs and such-like, because
blacklegs were to his taste. But he boasted daily, nay, hourly to
himself, and frequently to those around him, that the leeches who
were stuck round him could draw but little blood from him. He could
spend his money freely; but he would so spend it that he himself
might reap the gratification of the expenditure. He was acute,
crafty, knowing, and up to every damnable dodge practised by men of
the class with whom he lived. At one-and-twenty he was that most
odious of all odious characters--a close-fisted reprobate.

He was a small man, not ill-made by Nature, but reduced to unnatural
tenuity by dissipation--a corporeal attribute of which he was apt
to boast, as it enabled him, as he said, to put himself up at 7 st.
7 lb. without any "d---- nonsense of not eating and drinking." The
power, however, was one of which he did not often avail himself, as
his nerves were seldom in a fit state for