Mr. Mowbray; but he loves play, and
is too hard for most people."

"I thank you for your hint, Captain Jekyl--I am a raw Scotchman, it is
true; but yet I know a thing or two. Fair play is always presumed
amongst gentlemen; and that taken for granted, I have the vanity to
think I need no one's caution on the subject, not even Captain Jekyl's,
though his experience must needs be so much superior to mine."

"In that case, sir," said Jekyl, bowing coldly, "I have no more to say,
and I hope there is no harm done.--Conceited coxcomb!" he added,
mentally, as they parted, "how truly did Etherington judge of him, and
what an ass was I to intermeddle!--I hope Etherington will strip him of
every feather!"

He pursued his walk in quest of Tyrrel, and Mowbray proceeded to the
apartments of the Earl, in a temper of mind well suited to the purposes
of the latter, who judged of his disposition accurately when he
permitted Jekyl to give his well-meant warning. To be supposed, by a man
of acknowledged fashion, so decidedly inferior to his antagonist--to be
considered as an object of compassion, and made the subject of a
good-boy warning, was gall and bitterness to his proud spirit, which,
the more that he felt a conscious inferiority in the arts which they all
cultivated, struggled the more to preserve the footing of at least
apparent equality.

Since the first memorable party at piquet, Mowbray had never hazarded
his luck with Lord Etherington, except for trifling stakes; but his
conceit led him to suppose that he now fully understood his play, and,
agreeably to the practice of those who have habituated themselves to
gambling, he had every now and then felt a yearning to try for his
revenge. He wished also to be out of Lord Etherington's debt, feeling
galled under a sense of pecuniary obligation, which hindered his
speaking his mind to him fully upon the subject of his flirtation with
Lady Binks, which he justly considered as an insult to his family,
considering the footing on which the Earl seemed desirous to stand with
Clara Mowbray. From these obligations a favourable evening might free
him, and Mowbray was, in fact, indulging in a waking dream to this
purpose, when Jekyl interrupted him. His untimely warning only excited a
spirit of contradiction, and a determination to show the adviser how
little he was qualified to judge of his talents; and in this humour,
his ruin, which was the consequence of that afternoon, was far from
s