One Of Them

“Nothing – thanks – it’s too early.”

“Won’t you have even a weed?” said he, opening a cigar-box.

“I ‘m provided,” said the other, showing the half of a still lighted cigar. “I came over this morning, hoping to catch you at home, and make some sort of settlement about our little transactions together.”

“My dear fellow, you surely can’t think it makes any matter between us. I hope you know that it is entirely a question for your own convenience. No man has more experience of what it is to be ‘hit hard,’ as they say. When I first came out, I got it. By Jove! did n’t I get it, and at both sides of the head too. It was Mopus’s year, when the Yorkshire Lass ran a dead heat with Skyrocket for the Diddlesworth. I stood seventeen to one, in thousands! think of that, – seventeen thousand pounds to one against the filly. It was thought so good a thing that Naylor – old Jerry, as they used to call him – offered me a clean thousand to let him take half the wager. But these are old stories now, and they only bore you; in fact, it was just to show you that every man has his turn – ”

“I own frankly,” broke in Heathcote, “I am far too full of selfish cares to take a proper interest in your story. Just tell me if these figures are correct?” And he turned to look out for a particular page in a small book.

“Confound figures! I wish they never were invented. If one only thinks of all the hearty fellows they ‘ve set by the ears, the close friendships they have severed, the strong attachments they have broken, I declare one would be justified in saying it was the devil himself invented arithmetic.”

“I wish he ‘d have made it easier when he was about it,” said Heathcote.

“Excellent, by Jove! – how good! ‘Made it easier’ – capital!” cried O’Shea, laughing with a boisterous jollity that made the room ring. “I hope I ‘ll not forget that. I must book that mot of yours.”

Heathcote grew crimson with shame, and, in an angry impulse, pitched his cigar into the fire.

“That’s right,” broke in O’Shea; “these are far better smoking than your cheroots; these are Hudson’s ‘Grand Viziers,’ made especially for Abba Pasha’s own smoking.”

Heathcote declined coldly, and continued his search through his note-book.

“It was odd enough,” said O’Shea, “just as you came in I was balancing in my own mind whether I ‘d go over to the Villa, or write to you.”

“Write to me!” said the other, reddening.

“Don’t be scared; it was not to dun you. No; I was meditating whether it was quite fair of me to take that trap and the nags. You like that sort of thing; it suits you too. Now, I ‘m sobering down into the period of Park phaetons and George the Fourths: a low step to get in, and a deep, well-cushioned seat, with plenty of leg room; that’s more my style. As Holditch says, ‘The O’Shea wants an armchair upon C springs and Collinge’s patent’ Free and easy that, from a rascally coachmaker, eh?”

“I don’t want the horses. I have no use for them. I ‘m not quite clear whether you valued the whole thing at two hundred and fifty or three hundred and fifty?”

“We said, two fifty,” replied O’Shea, in his silkiest of tones.

“Be it so,” muttered Heathcote; “I gave two hundred for the chestnut horse at Tattersall’s.”

“He was dear, – too dear,” was the dry reply.

“Esterhazy called him the best horse he ever bred.”

“He shall have him this morning for a hundred and twenty.”

“Well, well,” burst in Heathcote, “we are not here to dispute about that. I handed you, as well as I remember, eighty, and two hundred and thirty Naps.”

“More than that, I think,” said O’Shea, thoughtfully, and as if laboring to recollect clearly.

“I’m certain I’m correct,” said Heathcote, haughtily. “I made no other payments than these two, – eighty and two hundred and thirty.”

“What a memory I have, to be sure!” said O’Shea, laughingly. “I remember now, it was a rouleau of fifty that I paid away to Layton was running in my head.”

Heathcote’s lip curled superciliously, but it was only for a second, and his features were calm as before. “Two thirty and eighty make three hundred and ten, and three fifty – ”

“Two fifty for the trap!” broke in O’Shea.

“Ah! to be sure, two fifty, make altogether five hundred and sixty Naps, leaving, let me see – ninety-four – sixty-one – one hundred and twelve – ”

“A severe night that was. You never won a game!” chimed in O’Shea.

“ – One hundred and twelve and seventy, making three hundred and thirty-seven in all. Am I right?”

“Correct as Cocker, only you have forgotten your walk against time, from the fish-pond to the ranger’s lodge. What was it, – ten Naps, or twenty?”

“Neither. It was five, and I paid it!” was the curt answer.

“Ain’t I the stupidest dog that ever sat for a borough?” said O’Shea, bursting out into one of his boisterous laughs. “Do you know, I’d have been quite willing to have bet you a cool hundred about that?”

“And you ‘d have lost,” said Heathcote, dryly.

“Not a doubt of it, and deserved it too,” said he, merrily.

“I have brought you here one hundred and fifty,” said Heathcote, laying down three rouleaux on the table, “and, for the remainder, my note at three months. I hope that may not prove inconvenient?”

“Inconvenient, my boy! never say the word. Not to mention that fortune may take a turn one of these days, and all this California find its way back to its own diggings.”

“I don’t mean to play any more.”

“Not play any more! Do you mean to say that, because you have been once repulsed, you ‘ll never charge again? Is that your soldier’s pluck?”

“There is no question here of my soldier’s pluck. I only said I ‘d not play billiards.”

“May I ask you one thing? How can you possibly expect to attain excellence in any pursuit, great or small, when you are so easily abashed?”

“May I take the same liberty with you, and ask how can it possibly concern any one but myself that I have taken this resolution?”

“There you have me! a hazard and no mistake! I may be your match at billiards; but when it comes to repartee, you are the better man, Heathcote.”

Coarse as the flattery was, it was not unpleasing. Indeed, in its very coarseness there was a sort of mock sincerity, just as the stroke of a heavy hand on your shoulder is occasionally taken for good fellowship, though you wince under the blow. Now Heathcote was not only gratified by his own smartness, but after a moment or two he felt half sorry he had been so “severe on the poor fellow.” He had over-shotted his gun, and there was really no necessity to rake him so heavily; and so, with a sort of blundering bashfulness, he said, —

“You ‘re not offended; you ‘re not angry with me?”

“Offended! angry! nothing of the kind. I believe I am a peppery sort of fellow, – at least, down in the West there they say as much of me; but once a man is my friend, – once that I feel all straight and fair between us, – he may bowl me over ten times a day, and I ‘ll never resent it.”

There was a pause after this, and Heathcote found his position painfully awkward. He did not fancy exactly to repudiate the friendship thus assumed, and he certainly did not like to put his name to the bond; and so he walked to the window and looked out with that half-hopeless vacuity bashful men are prone to.

“What’s the weather going to do?” said he, carelessly. “More rain?”

“Of course, more rain! Amongst all the humbugs of the day, do you know of one equal to the humbug of the Italian climate? Where’s the blue sky they rave about?”

“Not there, certainly,” said Heathcote, laughing, as he looked up at the leaden-colored canopy that lowered above them.

“My father used to say,” said O’Shea, “that it was all a mistake to talk about the damp climate of Ireland; the real grievance was, that when it rained it always rained dirty water!”