sit on his
very brow; were not his looks the signs of conquest; and, better than
all, who that ever knew him had not the assurance from his own lips?
With what a happy mixture of nonchalance and self-satisfaction would he
make these confessions! How admirably blended was the sense of triumph
with the consciousness of its ease! How he would shake his ambrosial
curls, and throw himself into a pose of elegance, as though to say,
''Twas thus I did it; ain't I a sad dog?'

Well, if these conquests were illusions, they were certainly the
pleasantest ever a man indulged in. They consoled him at heart for the
loss of fortune, country, and position; they were his recompense for
all the lost glories of Crockford's and the 'Clarendon.' Never was there
such a picture of perfect tranquillity and unclouded happiness. Oh, let
moralists talk as they will about the serenity of mind derivable alone
from a pure conscience, the peaceful nature that flows from a source of
true honour, and then look abroad upon the world and count the hundreds
whose hairs are never tinged with grey, whose cheeks show no wrinkles,
whose elastic steps suffer no touch of age, and whose ready smile and
cheerful laugh are the ever-present signs of their contentment--let them
look on these, and reflect that of such are nine-tenths of those who
figure in lists of outlawry, whose bills do but make the stamps they are
written on of no value, whose creditors are legion and whose credit is
at zero, and say which seem the happier. To see them one would opine
that there must be some secret good in cheating a coachmaker, or some
hidden virtue in tricking a jeweller; that hotel-keepers are a natural
enemy to mankind, and that a tailor has not a right even to a decimal
fraction of honesty. Never was Epicurean philosophy like theirs; they
have a fine liberal sense of the blackguardisms that a man may commit,
and yet not forfeit his position in society. They know the precise
condition in life when he may practise dishonesty; and they also see
when he must be circumspect. They have one rule for the city and another
for the club; and, better than all, they have stored their minds with
sage maxims and wise reflections, which, like the philosophers of old,
they adduce on every suitable occasion; and many a wounded spirit has
been consoled by that beautiful sentiment, so frequent in their mouths,
of--

'Go ahead! for what's the odds so long as you 're happy?'

Such, my re