ome to an end.

So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of
all places where Pleasure has set up her tents; and where the gay, the
melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or haughty, come for amusement,
or business, or relaxation; where London beauties, having danced
and flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little more; where
well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world assemble; where I
have seen severe London lawyers, forgetting their wigs and the Temple,
trying their luck against fortune and M. Benazet; where wistful schemers
conspire and prick cards down, and deeply meditate the infallible coup;
and try it, and lose it, and borrow a hundred francs to go home; where
even virtuous British ladies venture their little stakes, and draw up
their winnings with trembling rakes, by the side of ladies who are not
virtuous at all, no, not even by name; where young prodigals break the
bank sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place which Hercules
himself could scarcely compel; where you meet wonderful countesses
and princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on their vast
estates--in Italy, Spain, Piedmont--who knows where their lordships'
possessions are?--while trains of suitors surround those wandering
Penelopes their noble wives; Russian Boyars, Spanish Grandees of the
Order of the Fleece, Counts of France, and Princes Polish and Italian
innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with their tobacco-smoke, and
swear in all languages against the black and the red. The famous English
monosyllable by which things, persons, luck, even eyes, are devoted to
the infernal gods, we may be sure is not wanting in that Babel. Where
does one not hear it? "D---- the luck," says Lord Kew, as the croupier
sweeps off his lordship's rouleaux. "D---- the luck," says Brown the
bagman, who has been backing his lordship with five-franc pieces. "Ah,
body of Bacchus!" says Count Felice, whom we all remember a courier.
"Ah, sacre coup," cries M. le Vicomte de Florac, as his last louis parts
company from him--each cursing in his native tongue. Oh, sweet chorus!

That Lord Kew should be at Baden is no wonder. If you heard of him at
the Finish, or at Buckingham Palace ball, or in a watch-house, or at the
Third Cataract, or at a Newmarket meeting, you would not be surprised.
He goes everywhere; does everything with all his might; knows everybody.
Last week he won who knows how many thousand louis from the b