While Cashel continued his way homeward, a very joyous party had assembled in Lord Charles Frobisher's room, who were endeavoring, by the united merits of cigars, ÉcartÉ, hazard, and an excellent supper, of which they partook at intervals, to compensate themselves for the unusual dulness of the drawing-room. It is well known how often the least entertaining individuals in general society become the most loquacious members of a party assembled in this fashion. The restraints which had held them in check before are no longer present; their loud speech and empty laughter are not any longer under ban, and they are tolerated by better men, pretty much as children are endured, because at least they are natural.

At a round table in the middle of the room were a group engaged at hazard. Upton was deep in ÉcartÉ with his brother officer, Jennings, while Frobisher lounged about, sipping weak negus, and making his bets at either table as fancy or fortune suggested. The supper-table had few votaries; none, indeed, were seated at it save Meek, who, with a newspaper on his knee, seemed singularly out of place in the noisy gathering.

“Eleven's the nick—eleven! I say, Charley, have at you for a pony,” called out a boyish-looking dragoon, from the middle table.

“You're under age, young gentleman,” said Frobisher; “I can't afford to bet with you. Wait a moment, Upton, I 'll back you this time. Twenty sovereigns—will you have it?”

“Done!” said Jennings, and the game began.

“The King,” cried Upton; “I propose.”

“To which of them?” said a sharp-looking infantry captain, behind his chair.

“Olivia, of course,” slipped in Jennings.

“I 'd give fifty pounds to know if they have the money people say,” cried Upton.

“Meek can tell you; he knows everything. I say, Downie,” said Jennings, “come here for a moment, and enlighten us on a most interesting point.”

“Oh dear! what is it? This room is so very cold. Don't you think, Frobisher, that a double door would be advisable?”

“A green one, with a centre pane of glass, would make it devilish like a 'hell,'” said Upton; upon which the company all laughed approvingly.

“What is it you want?” said Meek, approaching, glass in hand.

“Play out the game, and have your gossip afterwards,” said Frobisher, who felt far more anxious about the fate of his twenty pounds than for the result of the conversation.

“A queen of hearts,” said Upton, leading; then, turning to Meek, said, “These Kennyfeck girls—can you tell what the figure is?”

“Poor dear things,” said Meek, piteously; “they should be very well off.”

“I score two!” said Upton. “Well, have they twenty thousand each?”

“I should say more. Oh dear me! they must have more! Kennyfeck holds a heavy mortgage on Kilgoff's estate, and has a great deal of other property.”

“Then it would be a good thing, Meek, eh?” said Jennings.

“Game!” cried Upton, showing his cards upon the table.

“There is so much chaffing about girls and their fortunes, one can't play his game here,” said Jennings, as he threw down a handful of gold on the board.

“Who was it ordered the post-horses for to-morrow?” said a youth at the supper-table. “The MacFarlines?”

“No; Lord Kilgoff.”

“I assure you,” cried a third, “it was the Kennyfecks. There has been a 'flare-up' about money between Cashel and him, and it is said he 'll lose the agency. Who 'll get it, I wonder?”

“Tom Linton, of course,” said the former speaker. “I 'd wager he is gone off to Dublin to furbish up securities, or something of that kind.”

“Who'd give Tom trust, or go bail for him?” said Frobisher.

A very general laugh did not sound like a contradiction of the sentiment.

“I heard a week ago,” said the cornet, “that Kilgoff would stand security to any amount for him.”

“Ah, that comes of my Lady's good opinion of him!” cried Jennings.

“Nay, don't say that, it looks so ill-natured,” sighed Meek; “and there is really nothing in it. You know she and Tom were old friends. Oh dear, it was so sad!”

“Where does Cashel get such execrable champagne?” said an infantryman, with a very wry expression of face.

“It's dry wine, that's all,” said Frobisher, “and about the best ever imported.”

“We 'd be very sorry to drink it at our mess, my Lord, I know that,” said the other, evidently nettled at the correction.

“Yours is the Fifty-third?” said a guardsman.

“No; the Thirty-fifth.”

“Aw! same thing,” sighed he; and he stooped to select a cigar.

“I wish the Kennyfecks were not going,” said Upton, drawing his chair closer to Meek's; “there are so few houses one meets them at.”

“You should speak to Linton about that,” whispered Meek.

“Here's Jim's health,—hip, hip, hurrah!” cried out a white-moustached boy, who had joined a hussar regiment a few weeks before, and was now excessively tipsy.

The laughter at this toast was increased by Meek's holding out his glass to be filled as he asked, “Of course,—whose health is it?”

“One of Frobisher's trainers,” said Upton, readily.

“No, it's no such thing,” hiccoughed the hussar. “I was proposing a bumper to the lightest snaffle hand from this to Doncaster—the best judge of a line of country in the kingdom—”

“That's me,” said a jolly voice, and at the same instant the door was flung wide, and Tom Linton, splashed from the road, and travel-stained, entered.

“I must say, gentlemen, you are no churls of your wit and pleasantry, for, as I came up the stairs, I could hear every word you were saying.”

“Oh dear, how dreadful! and we were talking of you too,” said Meek, with a piteous air that made every one laugh.

A thousand questions as to where he had been, whom with, and what for?—all burst upon Linton, who only escaped importunity by declaring that he was half dead with hunger, and would answer nothing till he had eaten.

“So,” said he, at length, after having devoted twenty minutes to a grouse-pie of most cunning architecture, “you never guessed where I had been?”

“Oh! we had guesses enough, if that served any purpose.”

“I thought it was a bolt, Tom,” said Upton; “but as she appeared at breakfast, as usual, I saw my mistake.”

“Meek heard that you had gone over to Downing Street to ask for the Irish Secretaryship,” said Jennings.

“I said you had been to have a talk with Scott about 'Regulator;' was I far off the mark?”

“Mrs. White suggested an uncle's death,” said Frobisher; “but uncles don't die nowadays.”

“Did you buy the colt?—Have you backed 'Runjeet Singh?'—Are you to have the agency?—How goes on the borough canvass?” and twenty similar queries now poured in on him.

“Well, I see,” cried he, laughing, “I shall sadly disappoint all the calculations founded on my shrewdness and dexterity, for the whole object of my journey was to secure a wardrobe for our fancy ball, which I suddenly heard of as being at Limerick; and so, not trusting the mission to another, I started off myself, and here I am, with materials for more Turks, Monks, Sailors, Watchmen, Greeks, Jugglers, and Tyrolese, than ever travelled in anything save a caravan with one horse.”

“Are your theatrical intentions all abandoned?” cried Jennings.

“I trust not,” said Linton; “but I heard that Miss Meek had decided on the ball to come off first.”

“Hip! hip! hip!” was moaned out, in very lachrymose tone, from a sofa where the boy hussar, very sick and very tipsy, lay stretched on his back.

“Who is that yonder?” asked Linton.

“A young fellow of ours,” said Jennings, indolently.

“I thought they made their heads better at Sandhurst.”

“They used in my time,” said Upton; “but you have no idea how the thing has gone down.”

“Quite true,” chimed in another; “and I don't think we 've seen the worst of it yet. Do you know, they talk of an examination for all candidates for commissions!”

“Well, I must say,” lisped the guardsman, “I believe it would be an improvement for the 'line.'”

“The household brigade can dispense with information,” said an infantry captain.

“I demur to the system altogether,” said Linton. “Physicians tell us that the intellectual development is always made at the expense of the physical, and as one of the duties of a British army is to suffer yellow fever in the West Indies and cholera in the East, I vote for leaving them strong in constitution and intact in strength as vacant heads and thoughtless skulls can make them.”

“Oh dear me! yes,” sighed Meek, who, by one of his mock concurrences, effectually blinded the less astute portion of the audience from seeing Linton's impertinence.

“What has been doing here in my absence?” said Linton; “have you no event worth recording for me?”

“There is a story,” said Upton, “that Cashel and Kennyfeck have quarrelled,—a serious rupture, they say, and not to be repaired.”

“How did it originate? Something about the management of the property?”

“No, no,—it was a row among the women. They laid some scheme for making Cashel propose for one of the girls.”

“Not Olivia, I hope?” said Upton, as he lighted a new cigar.

“I rather suspect it was,” interposed another.

“In any case, Linton,” cried Jennings, “you are to be the gainer, for the rumor says, Cashel will give you the agency, with his house to live in, and a very jolly thing to spend, while he goes abroad to travel.”

“If this news be true, Tom,” said Frobisher, “I 'll quarter my yearlings on you; there is a capital run for young horses in those flats along the river.”

“The house is cold at this season,” said Meek, with a sad smile; “but I think it would be very endurable in the autumn months. I should n't say but you may see us here again at that time.”

“I hope 'ours' may be quartered at Limerick,” said an infantryman, with a most suggestive look at the comforts of the apartment, which were a pleasing contrast to barrack-room accommodation.

“Make yourselves perfectly at home here, gentlemen, when that good time comes,” said Linton, with one of his careless laughs. “I tell you frankly, that if Cashel does make me such a proposal—a step which, from his knowledge of my indolent, lazy habits, is far from likely—I only accept on one condition.”

“What is that?” cried a dozen voices.

“That you will come and pass your next Christmas here.”

“Agreed—agreed!” was chorused on every side.

“I suspect from that bit of spontaneous hospitality,” whispered Frobisher to Meek, “that the event is something below doubtful.”

Meek nodded.

“What is Charley saying?” cried Linton, whose quick eye caught the glance interchanged between the two.

“I was telling Meek,” said Frobisher, “that I don't put faith enough in the condition to accept the invitation.”

“Indeed!” said Linton, while he turned to the table and filled his glass, to hide a passing sign of mortification.

“Tom Linton for a man's agent, seems pretty like what old Frederick used to call keeping a goat for a gardener.”

“You are fond of giving the odds, Frobisher,” said Linton, who, for some minutes, continued to take glass after glass of champagne; “now, what's your bet that I don't do the honors here next Christmas-day?”

“I can't say what you mean,” said Frobisher, languidly. “I've seen you do 'the honors' at more than one table where you were the guest.”

“This, I suppose, is meant for a pleasantry, my Lord?” said Linton, while his face became flushed with passion.

“It is meant for fact,” said Frobisher, with a steady coolness in his air and accent.

“A fact! and not in jest, then!” said he, approaching where the other sat, and speaking in a low voice.

“That's very quarrelsome wine, that dry champagne,” said Frobisher, lazily; “don't drink any more of it.”

Linton tried to smile; the effort, at first not very successful, became easier after a moment, and it was with a resumption of his old manner he said,—

“I 'll take you two to one in fifties that I act the host here this day twelvemonth.”

“You hear the offer, gentlemen?” said Frobisher, addressing the party. “Of course it is meant without any reservation, and so I take it.”

He produced a betting-book as he said this, and began to write in it with his pencil.

“Would you prefer it in hundreds?” said Linton.

Frobisher nodded an assent.

“Or shall we do the thing sportingly, and say two thousand to one?” continued he.

“Two thousand to one be it,” said Frobisher, while the least possible smile might be detected on his usually immovable features. “There is no knowing how to word this bet,” said he, at last, after two or three efforts, followed by as many erasures; “you must write it yourself.”

Linton took the pencil, and wrote rapidly for a few seconds.

“Will that do?” said he.

And Frobisher read to himself: “'Mr. Linton, two thousand to one with Lord C. Frobisher, that he, T. L., on the anniversary of this day, shall preside as master of the house Tubbermore, by due right and title, and not by any favor, grace, or sanction of any one whatsoever.”

“Yes; that will do, perfectly,” said Frobisher, as he closed the book, and restored it to his pocket.

“Was the champagne so strong as you expected?” whispered Upton, as he passed behind Frobisher's chair.

A very knowing nod of acquiescence was the only reply.

Indeed, it did not require the practised shrewdness of Lord Charles, or his similarly sharp-eyed friends, to see that Linton's manner was very different from his habitual calm collectedness, while he continued to drink on, with the air of a man that was resolved on burying his faculties in the excitement of wine.

Meek slipped away soon after, and, at Linton's suggestion a rouge-et-noir bank was formed, at which the play became high, and his own losses very considerable.

It was already daylight, and the servants were stirring in the house ere the party broke up.

“Master Tom has had a squeeze to-night,” said Jennings, as he was bidding Upton good-bye at his door.

“I can't understand it at all,” replied the other. “He played without judgment, and betted rashly on every side. It was far more like Roland Cashel than Tom Linton.”

“Well, you remember he said—to be sure, it was after drinking a quantity of wine—'Master Roland and I may change characters yet. Let us see if he can play “Linton,” as well as I can “Cashel.”'”

“He's so deep, that I wouldn't say but there is something under all this.” And so they parted, sadly puzzled what interpretation to put on conduct, the mere result of a passing intemperance; for so it is, your “cunning men” are never reputed to be so deep by the world as when by some accident they, have forgotten their craft.