cabriolet down St. James's Street. He had taken more and more
to the vice of drinking as the excitement of gambling was withdrawn from
him. For how gamble with those who had nothing to lose, and to whom he
himself would have been pigeon, not hawk? And as he found that, on
what he thus drew regularly from Dolly Poole, he could command all
the comforts that his embruted tastes now desired, so an odd kind of
prudence for the first time in his life came with what he chose to
consider "a settled income." He mixed with ruffians in their nightly
orgies; treated them to cheap potations; swaggered, bullied, boasted,
but shared in no project of theirs which might bring into jeopardy the
life which Dolly Poole rendered so comfortable and secure. His energies,
once so restless, were lulled, partly by habitual intoxication, partly
by the physical pains which had nestled themselves into his robust
fibres, efforts of an immense and still tenacious vitality to throw
off diseases repugnant to its native magnificence of health. The finest
constitutions are those which, when once seriously impaired, occasion
the direst pain; but they also enable the sufferer to bear pain that
would soon wear away the delicate. And Jasper bore his pains stoutly,
though at times they so exasperated his temper, that woe then to any of
his comrades whose want of caution or respect gave him the occasion
to seek relief in wrath! His hand was as heavy, his arm as stalwart
as ever. George Morley had been rightly informed. Even by burglars and
cut-throats, whose dangers he shunned, while fearlessly he joined
their circle, Jasper Losely was regarded with terror. To be the awe of
reckless men, as he had been the admiration of foolish women, this was
delight to his vanity, the last delight that was left to it. But he thus
provoked a danger to which his arrogance was blind. His boon companions
began to grow tired of him. He had been welcomed to their resort on the
strength of the catchword or passport which confederates at Paris had
communicated to him, and of the reputation for great daring and small
scruple which he took from Cutts, who was of high caste amongst
their mysterious tribes, and who every now and then flitted over the
Continent, safe and accursed as the Wandering Jew. But when they found
that this Achilles of the Greeks would only talk big, and employ his
wits on his private exchequer and his thews against themselves, they
began not only to tire of his imp