ast, most of the others
had concluded their meal. Young Lord Varinas was smoking an immense
Meerschaum pipe, while Captain Hugues was employed with a cigar: that
violent little devil Tandyman, with his little bull-terrier between his
legs, was tossing for shillings with all his might (that fellow was
always at some game or other) against Captain Deuceace; and Mac and
Rawdon walked off to the Club, neither, of course, having given any
hint of the business which was occupying their minds. Both, on the
other hand, had joined pretty gaily in the conversation, for why should
they interrupt it? Feasting, drinking, ribaldry, laughter, go on
alongside of all sorts of other occupations in Vanity Fair--the crowds
were pouring out of church as Rawdon and his friend passed down St.
James's Street and entered into their Club.

The old bucks and habitues, who ordinarily stand gaping and grinning
out of the great front window of the Club, had not arrived at their
posts as yet--the newspaper-room was almost empty. One man was present
whom Rawdon did not know; another to whom he owed a little score for
whist, and whom, in consequence, he did not care to meet; a third was
reading the Royalist (a periodical famous for its scandal and its
attachment to Church and King) Sunday paper at the table, and looking
up at Crawley with some interest, said, "Crawley, I congratulate you."

"What do you mean?" said the Colonel.

"It's in the Observer and the Royalist too," said Mr. Smith.

"What?" Rawdon cried, turning very red. He thought that the affair
with Lord Steyne was already in the public prints. Smith looked up
wondering and smiling at the agitation which the Colonel exhibited as
he took up the paper and, trembling, began to read.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with whom Rawdon had the
outstanding whist account) had been talking about the Colonel just
before he came in.

"It is come just in the nick of time," said Smith. "I suppose Crawley
had not a shilling in the world."

"It's a wind that blows everybody good," Mr. Brown said. "He can't go
away without paying me a pony he owes me."

"What's the salary?" asked Smith.

"Two or three thousand," answered the other. "But the climate's so
infernal, they don't enjoy it long. Liverseege died after eighteen
months of it, and the man before went off in six weeks, I hear."

"Some people say his brother is a very clever man. I always found him
a d------ bore," Smith ejacu