Volume Ii Part 28 (2/2)
”They are yonder under the great-coat. Renshaw lent them. They are not very good, he says, and one of them hangs a little in the fire.”
”They 'll be better than the old Irishman's, that's certain. You may swear that his tools were in use early in the last century.”
”And himself, too; that's the worst of it all. I wish it was not a fellow that might be my grandfather.”
”I don't know. I rather suspect, if I was given to compunctions, I'd have less of them for shaking down the rotten ripe fruit than the blossom.”
”And he 's a fine old fellow, too,” said Stapylton, half sadly.
”Why didn't you tell him to drop in this evening and have a little _ecarte?_”
For a while Stapylton leaned his head on his hand moodily, and said nothing.
”Cheer up, man! Taste that Hollands. I never mixed better,” said Brown.
”I begin to regret now, Duff, that I did n't take your advice.”
”And run away with her?”
”Yes, it would have been the right course, after all!”
”I knew it. I always said it. I told you over and over again what would happen if you went to work in orderly fas.h.i.+on. They 'd at once say, 'Who are your people,--where are they,--what have they?' Now, let a man be as inventive as Daniel Defoe himself, there will always slip out some flaw or other about a name, or a date,--dates are the very devil! But when you have once carried her off, what can they do but compromise?”
”She would never have consented.”
”I 'd not have asked her. I 'd have given her the benefit of the customs of the land she lived in, and made it a regular abduction. Paddy somebody and Terence something else are always ready to risk their necks for a pint of whiskey and a breach of the laws.”
”I don't think I could have brought myself to it.”
”_I_ could, I promise you.”
”And there 's an end of a man after such a thing.”
”Yes, if he fails. If he's overtaken and thrashed, I grant you he not only loses the game, but gets the cards in his face, besides. But why fail? n.o.body fails when he wants to win,--when he determines to win.
When I shot De Courcy at Asterabad--”
”Don't bring up that affair, at least, as one of precedent, Duff. I neither desire to be tried for a capital felony, nor to have committed one.”
”Capital fiddlesticks! As if men did not fight duels every day of the week; the difference between guilt and innocence being that one fellow's hand shook, and the other's was steady. De Courcy would have 'dropped'
me, if I'd have Jet him.”
”And so _you_ would have carried her off, Master Duff?” said Stapylton, slowly.
”Yes; if she had the pot of money you speak of, and no Lord Chancellor for a guardian. I 'd have made the thing sure at once.”
”The money she will and must have; so much is certain.”
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