e with whom I had spent much
of my time when first in Paris. I exchanged for the worse, in making
my sole companions of a set of English scamps, who asked no better
than to assist at the plucking of such a pigeon as myself. At first
they treated me with tenderness, fearing to spoil their game by a
measure of wholesale plunder. They made much of me, frequently
favoured me with their company at dinner, occasionally forgot their
purses and borrowed from mine, forgetting repayment, and got up card
parties, at which, however, I was sometimes allowed to come off a
winner. But my gains were units and my losses tens. An imprudent
revelation accelerated the catastrophe. My chosen intimate was one
Harry Darvel, a tall pale man, several years older than myself, who
would have been good-looking, but for the unpleasant shifting
expression of his grey eyes, and for a certain cold rigidity of
feature, frequently seen in persons of the profession I afterwards
found he exercised. I first made his acquaintance at Baden, met him by
appointment at Paris, and he soon became my chief associate. I knew
little of him, except that he had a large acquaintance, lived in good
style, spent his money freely, and was one of the most amusing
companions I had ever had. By this time I began to see through
flattery, when it was not very adroitly administered, and to suspect
the real designs of some of the vultures that flocked about me Darvel
never flattered me; his manner was blunt, almost to roughness; he
occasionally gave me advice, and affected sincere friendship and
anxiety for my welfare. 'You are young in the world,' he would say to
me, 'you know a good deal for the time you have been in it, but I am
an old stager, and have been six seasons in Paris for your one. I
don't want to dry-nurse you, nor are you the man to let me, but two
heads are better than one, and you may sometimes be glad of a hint.
This is a queer town, and there are an infernal lot of swindlers
about.' I little dreamed that my kind adviser was one of the most
expert of the class he denounced, but reposed full trust in him, and,
by attending to his disinterested suggestions, gradually detached
myself from my few really respectable associates, and delivered myself
entirely into his hands, and those of his assistant Philistines. Upon
an unlucky day, when a letter of warning from my worthy old
stockbroker had revived former anxieties in my mind, I made Darvel my
confidant, and asked