CHAPTER X.

THE EPIDEMIC OF CARDS.

THE Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, at the time of which I am writing, was as crotchety a specimen of the old school as the Peninsular had ever turned out. Clean shaved, with a Waterloo expression of countenance, Sir George Browne was about the last of Wellington’s veterans who held a high command. Despotic and vindictive if thwarted, he had a squabble with the railway companies, and retaliated by vetoing henceforth the transit of troops by rail, and a regiment ordered from Londonderry to Cork did the entire distance by route march. Not that the ordeal was without its advantages, for it enabled British regiments to form their own opinions of Irish hospitality and the numerous good qualities of that much-misunderstood race. Proceeding in detachments of two and three companies, every night found them billeted in the towns or villages through which they passed, and it was no rare occurrence for the landed proprietors to ride out and insist that every officer should stay at the Manor House, and to send supplies of comforts wherewith to regale the men.

Mr. Kavanagh, M.P. for Kilkenny, was a brilliant specimen of a real old Irish gentleman, and though deformed from his birth, could hold his own amongst the best. Without arms, this grand sportsman could ride, drive four horses, and shoot to perfection, and his prowess in Corfu and other distant sporting haunts is remembered to this day.

Riding out to welcome the regiment, no refusal was listened to, and within an hour every officer was comfortably settled at Borris Castle, and the men fared proportionately as well.

But the monotony of these tedious pilgrimages will not bear narration. Suffice it that having landed at Cork we received orders, much to our delight, to proceed direct to Dublin instead of to dismal Templemore.

The craze for punting that we had experienced in London seemed, indeed, to have crossed the Channel, and when the officers had severally been elected honorary members, it was found that the Hibernian United Service Club was the hotbed of about the highest play they had yet encountered. Nightly, with the precision of a chronometer, ten o’clock found the spacious card room crammed to its uttermost limits, and Irish banknotes, varying from one to ten sovereigns in value, were literally stacked a foot high on either side of the table. All through the night these terrible duels continued, and it was no uncommon thing to leave the room and drive like blazes for morning parade at ten. The garrison in this memorable year was an exceptionally “high-play” one, consisting, amongst others, of the 4th and 11th Hussars, 9th Lancers, the Royal Dragoons, Highlanders, and Rifle Brigade, and during that winter fabulous sums were lost by men incapable of meeting their obligations.

The Committee, meanwhile, were roused to action, and peremptory orders were given that the gas was to be turned off punctually at 2 a.m.; but the extinction of the gas was the signal for the appearance of substitutes, and out of some two hundred pockets wax candles were brought forth, and the game proceeded as vigorously as ever.

Further pressure was now applied, and under pain of expulsion members were ordered to quit the card room at the prescribed hour; but even this did not meet the case, and the punters ascended _en bloc_ to the largest bedroom above.

It may be explained that this really delightful club possessed a dozen bedrooms, and on the particular occasion of which we are writing, one was in the occupation of Sir James Jackson, G.C.B., as irritable an old Peninsular veteran as a merciful Providence had spared to the sixties. A cavalry man of the old school, he invariably wore spurs, and no human eye had ever seen him without these useful appendages—a small blue moustache carefully waxed, and a bald head with blue tufts on either side completed the picture of this irritable old warrior who ate his dinner every day in the club, and never spoke to a soul.

Play, meanwhile, was proceeding apace, with calls of “King,” “Fifty more wanted this side,” “D— it, blaze away,” “The pool’s made,” gracefully interspersed, when the door suddenly opened, and an apparition in flowing dressing-gown, nightcap, slippers, and spurs demanded peremptorily that the game should cease. To refuse the colonel-in-chief of the Carabineers would, of course, have been impossible, and as the old warrior retired to his couch the punters left the club.

Ruin, meanwhile, had overtaken many an irreproachable man, and L—, of the Royals, K— of the Rifle Brigade, and a score of others, had no alternative but to send in their papers, and then the Commander-in-Chief came upon the scene, and swore, as only a Waterloo veteran could, that if any officer again transgressed he would send the regiment to the worst station between Hell and Halifax.

But the wave of punting that appeared to have engulfed the land was by no means confined to the Arlington, Raleigh, and Hibernian Clubs, and the “Rag,” and later on the Whist Club—known as the “Shirt Shop”—caught the infection, and fabulous sums were wagered on the turn of a card night after night without intermission.

Two-pound points to £10 on the rubber were the staple stakes of even the sober old Whist, and then one was looked upon as depriving a better man of the seat unless prepared to bet an extra hundred. Old fogies, who had never previously risked a shilling, would cautiously creep to the table, and nervously tender half-crowns, till frightened out of their lives by Tony Fawcett, of the 9th Lancers, shouting, “D— it, sir, this isn’t a silver hell!” and then, not to be beaten, they would club together and make up the requisite sovereign.

Gus Anson, V.C., M.P., the most popular man of the day, was so impregnated with the epidemic that although at the time piloting an important Bill through Parliament, he had given me a standing order that as soon as a sufficient number were assembled for loo or baccarat, a telegram was to be despatched to him forthwith, and numerous were the messages that found their way to the sacred precincts of the House between ten and twelve at night, addressed to Colonel the Honourable Augustus Anson, V.C., M.P., presumedly from constituents.

Brighton, too, suffered from the epidemic, and during the Sussex fortnight the fever spread to an alarming extent. The London detachments came down _en bloc_, and all the best houses and leading hotels were filled with roysterers, and high play was the rule from night till morning.

Progress along the King’s Road after dusk was a matter of difficulty, and at every lamp-post one was importuned by eager touters, and invitation cards thrust into one’s hand to visit this house or that. Every roof sheltered punters of a lower strata anxious to emulate their betters, and the family knick-knacks and the family Bible, left exposed by their worthy owner in his desire to participate in the golden harvest, might have been seen huddled together in a corner, or intermingled with cards, whisky bottles, and tumblers.

In preparation for the nightly orgies that commenced about ten, the bloods inaugurated a delightful system whereby the maximum of fresh air with the minimum of exertion might be obtained prior to the inhaling of the foul currents amid which they proposed to revel for the rest of the night.

To meet the requirements of the case, every wheelchair was bespoken or engaged for the entire week at a considerable advance in price, and a procession, usually headed by George Chetwynd, Billy Milner and Billy Call—to whom the honour of the inception is credited—might nightly be seen wending its way to the end of the pier, selecting the most suitable parts, and generally inconveniencing everybody not of the “inner circle.”

The costume _de rigueur_ on these progresses was white tie, evening trousers and vest, and silk hat, with the oldest shooting coat in one’s wardrobe.

Later in the season some Hebrews of imitative dispositions aspired to emulate the bloods, but although their get-ups were irreproachable, the fraud was detected, and the jackdaws ruthlessly suppressed.

It is painful to remember the numerous edifices that toppled, and the many good men that “went under” in the inevitable crash that ensued, and picturing in one’s mind the huge table and the fifteen or twenty players that congregated nightly around the board in the various clubs—winners and losers and lookers-on—a lump rises in one’s throat as one remembers how few are left! Carlyon and Augustus Webster, Jauncey, Cootie Hutchinson, Sam Bachelor, Lord Milltown, Crock Vansittart, La Touche, Hastings, De Hoghton, Tom Naghten, Sir George O’Donnel, Dick Clayton, Gus Anson, Freddy Granville, George Lawrence, Jimmy Jop, Jim Coleman, and a host of others, all good men and true, and all long since swept away into the inevitable dust-bin.

Not to have known Jinks was not in itself a reproach, but not to have known Jonas Hunt in the long-ago sixties was to have admitted that one was without the pale of Society, or certainly that section of it which gambled, raced, and drank all day and all night, if circumstances permitted. A fine horseman of iron nerve and unbounded assurance, he had ridden in the Balaclava charge before he was out of his teens, and on retiring from the service a few years later, developed into one of the best gentleman riders ever seen in England or France.

In a chronic state of impecuniosity—as he insisted on asserting—he never omitted to add that a good knife and fork was always ready at home. Jonas had certainly run through pretty well all he had had, but still he always possessed an income.

Always ready to gamble, and always cheery, Jonas, as may be supposed, was popular with a certain set, and if he had a fault it was a forgetfulness in regard to the settlement of small scores, which by some was attributed to the excitement when he rode in the “six hundred,” and by others to various causes not sufficiently interesting to enumerate. Brave as a lion, he had actually been recommended for the Victoria Cross—in those days less lavishly awarded than now—and as he was quite ready to “go out” on the slightest provocation, timid natures preferred to put up with eccentricities arising out of his forgetfulness rather than risk a daylight meeting at twelve yards rise.

Whilst riding in France his performances were a revelation to his foreign critics, and when on one occasion his bridle broke and he steered his mount to victory with his whip, he received such an ovation at Chantilly as seldom falls to the lot of a perfidious Briton.

On one occasion, Jonas, who had allowed a comparative stranger to leave the table without settling, was met by the indignant creditor a few days later and reminded of his obligation; but Jonas, in no way disconcerted, let the amazed punter understand that such a demand was highly ungentlemanly and insulting, offering as an alternative to retire with him forthwith and fight it out with either pistols or fists.

In the duel between Dillon, a gentleman rider, and the Duc de Grammont-Caderousse, which created such an unjust scandal in the sixties, Jonas, as might have been expected, was the former’s second. Neither man had ever had a rapier in his hand before, and when on the following morning both began slashing and thrusting, and Dillon was run through the heart, a clamour arose as to the butchery of an Englishman by an expert swordsman; all which was bosh. Had de Grammont been anything but the veriest tyro, the regrettable incident could not have occurred.

It was subsequent to the various thrilling incidents we have narrated that Jonas selected Brighton as his headquarters.

Jinks’ Club was not located in a palatial mansion, nor did it even present the modest exterior of the local Union Club; as a fact, it was limited in its dimensions, and consisted of two rooms in an unpretentious house in Ship Street.

In the front room was a long table and some two dozen chairs, an iron safe, and a side table, convenient for the support of such light refreshments as sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, and beverages of a popular kind.

The back room was more or less a sealed subject, and supposed to contain club memoranda, Jinks’ books, and to be the spot where the “proprietor” carried on the business.

Membership of the club was within the reach of all, and a “quorum” of Jinks and Jonas could on emergency elect a member without general meeting or ballot; but those specially introduced by Jonas were received with marked favour. Nor were there apparently any fixed rules as to meetings, which were left to circumstances, and an urgent three-lined whip on emergency.

The procedure in the latter case may briefly be described as follows:—

If Jonas met a “likely” man—from town—he would tell him that his appearance was the luckiest thing in the world, as that very night a rare round game was “coming off,” that baccarat would begin at nine, and that the rendezvous was Jinks’ Club. This point being settled, an urgent whip was sent round by the indefatigable Jonas, and by 8.45 a representative company awaited the desirable plunger from town.

Prior to the commencement of the game, Jonas, it must be conceded, was a mass of energy. Attired in evening clothes he would first unlock the mysterious safe, and after the local members had come one by one, presumably to deposit money, and returned with counters conspicuously displayed, he would turn with his most winning smile to the visitor with: “Now, old man, how much do you want to buy; it saves a lot of bother by having counters? You’ve only to plank your counters after it’s over, and get their value; good rule, don’t you think? It’s what they do at ‘le Cercle’ at Nice; saves a lot of bother.”

Occasionally, during the excitement of the game, strangers had been known to put into the pool brand new crisp notes to save the bother of buying counters; but these were always exchanged for counters by the ever-obliging Jonas. “It’s much better to have one sort of settlement, don’t you think, old man?” he would add, as stuffing the notes into his pockets he eagerly rushed into the fray.

“By Jove! it’s later than I thought,” was often a familiar exclamation as daylight appeared over the pier. “How many counters have you got, Jack? Count them, old man, or keep them till morning. You and I are old pals; you know where to come in the morning. Name your own hour; good-night.” And the genius was round the corner like a hurricane.

An amusing incident once occurred where Jonas was a big winner, and his debtor Master Fred Granville; Jonas on this occasion was immeasurably chaffed. “You’ll never get a bob,” he was told right and left.

“Oh, yes I will, he’s all right,” was the half-hearted reply.

“But he’s going away in the morning,” added another; “you must look sharp, Jonas.” And Jonas intimated he had been promised that a cheque should be sent him in the morning.

Next morning a cab drove rapidly to the Norfolk, and Jonas, jumping out excitedly, said: “Look here, you chaps,” and he waved a cheque excitedly.

“Let’s have a look at it,” asked Ernest Neville. “Why, man, it isn’t signed.” And Jonas’s face lengthened inordinately as he realised the terrible omission.

Shouting for a cab after a hurried glance at a railway guide, he in due time reached the station, and had the satisfaction of seeing the last carriage slowly receding from view.

It was the winter that Garcia—a Spanish miscreant—who had won colossal sums at every hell in Europe, had just been detected in a trick that had long baffled the ingenuity of the world.

The scheme was nothing less than procuring the contract for the supply of cards at the principal gambling resorts of Nice, Monaco, St. Petersburg, Homburg, Paris, and Ostend.

Shiploads of his ware thus found their way into every quarter, and wherever he played he was confronted by his own cards. Knowing their backs as well as their faces, the result was obvious, and it was only after innumerable golden harvests that a clumsy accident brought the fraud to light in a salon in the Champs-Elysées.

The scare thus created had not been lost upon the Riviera, and every precaution that ingenuity could devise was taken to make foul play impossible.

It was during this winter, too, that the culprit, detected cheating at the Raleigh, put an end to his career.

Le Cercle de la Méditerranée is one of those majestic buildings that meets the enormous revenue required for its support by making the pastime of cards an absolute luxury. On the first floor is a spacious saloon, with no better light than that afforded by plate-glass panels communicating with the card room and other chambers; liberally provided with lounges, weary punters resorted to it for repose, and waiters, when not otherwise occupied, hovered near it as within easy call of everywhere. In the adjoining room cards were usually set for possible whist and ecarté, or until every available spot was required for the more exciting claims of chemin de fer.

Biscoe had on more than one occasion rambled through the empty room, and oblivious of the proximity of the servants, had been seen pocketing a pack of cards. This having been duly reported, he was made an especial object of interest to the committee; though, until he essayed to play, it was looked upon as the act of a kleptomaniac.

All this, however, was unknown to the culprit, who, with but one object, one aim in life, laughed at every reverse, and raked in his winnings when Fortune smiled on him. His luck as a whole had been fairly good, and thinking the moment a favourable one, he decided to increase his stakes.

It was now his deal, the “chemin de fer” was with him. “Come, gentlemen, let us plunge,” he jokingly remarked, as, producing a pocket-book, he placed it upon the pack. “I call twenty-five thousand francs.” (£1,000).

A keen observer might have detected certain ominous glances that passed between the polite Count and the bland Professor, but nothing was said, and amid the silence of the Catacombs, the game proceeded.

Five minutes later Biscoe was raking in £1,000 (in counters).

“Again, gentlemen!” he shouted, as flushed and excited, he had not observed that two or three players had risen, and the remainder, bewildered at so unusual a proceeding, stared at one another in blank astonishment.

“What’s up?” inquired Biscoe.

“D—d if I know,” was the laconic reply, as an Englishman left the table.

“The Committee, sir,” replied the Count, “have decided to count the cards, and on their authority I take possession of those before you.”

Meanwhile groups discussed the position and ominous expressions, such as “Il nous faut un agent de police,” and “C’est clair que nous avons été volés” were bandied about. A _procès verbal_ also took place, presided over by the Duc de Richelieu, and within an hour it was known to every _gamin_ in Nice that an English “milor” had descended to the level of a thimble-rigger, that his spurs had been hacked off by the fiat of public opinion, and that henceforth his place would know him no more.

The rest is briefly told. A dozen extra cards were found in the packs that had been correct before play commenced; the counters in Biscoe’s possession were _not_ redeemed by the club, and the “acceptance” was as far from redemption as ever.

Next morning, as the gardeners were sweeping the grounds, a dead body with a gun-shot wound in the head was found in a shrubbery.

Within a few yards lay the tideless Mediterranean, calm and sparkling as the morning sun played upon its waters; whilst here lay an upturned face, cold and rigid and ghastly white save for a clotted disfigurement on the brow, and the same sun, in all the irony of its grandeur, was lighting up all that was left of blighted hopes, fallen greatness, and a tragedy never to be forgotten. Later on, the mangled remains were buried at the expense of the Municipality.

A week or two later a paragraph appeared in a Dublin paper, and there the matter ended.

This is the usual procedure in these fashionable resorts. If you’ve lost your last penny you are provided with railway fare and seen off the premises; if you blow out your brains, you’re buried out of sight. Decency must be maintained! _Faites vos jeux, messieurs_!

A convenient custom obtained at Le Cercle de la Méditerranée whereby a player temporarily cleaned out was permitted to deposit a pencil on the table to represent a stake, it being understood that he immediately proceeded to the bureau to purchase counters to redeem his symbolical investment. This was known as “au crayon.”

It was on one occasion that Bob Villiers, who was usually limited as regards capital, was seen to place his pencil on the table and address the courteous dealer with, “Cent louis au crayon.”

“By Gad,” whispered George Payne, who stood near me, “Bob Villiers has put up a hundred louis ‘au crayon,’” and it was in breathless anxiety, and with an eventual sigh of relief, that we saw him rake up his winnings.

It was some years later, whilst once standing on the steps of the Hôtel des Anglais at Nice, at a time when the one topic of conversation was the terrible scandal that had lately taken place in Le Cercle de la Méditerranée, that George Payne expounded the irrefutable axiom that there were only two offences that might not be indulged in with impunity, and yet how extraordinary it was that men of wealth with every enjoyment capable of gratification should yet founder on one or other of these two unspeakable rocks, and instanced the recent H— affair, where the brother of a peer and major of a crack regiment had resorted to one of the unpardonable offences. And then he quoted George Russell, who had married a duke’s daughter, and Lord de Ros and Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton, another ducal branch, all of whom, in a species of insanity, had fallen from their high estates.

Many will recall the weird rumours that floated around the Clinton case; how the culprit had died and been duly buried; how weeks later an old gun-room companion had recognised his former ship-mate in a railway compartment, and how subsequent inquiry revealed the fact of a coffin filled with lumber.

And in the H— affair the surroundings were, if possible, more dramatic; how a youngster of the 7th, at Nice at the time, at once wrote the story to a brother officer in order that “the first intimation to ‘the Regiment’ might not come from the papers;” how the recipient intercepted the commanding officer (Colonel Hale) in the barrack square, and handed him the letter with: “This, sir, I have just received, and I feel it’s my duty to show it to you”; how within a week the pen was ruthlessly run through the culprit’s name, and the nine days’ wonder was forgotten.

That the publicity had been far-reaching, the following from the Paris _Figaro_ will show:—

“One had hoped that chevaliers of industry were things of the past, but it is not so; the game goes on as ever, to judge of what occurred last Monday at le Cercle de la Méditerranée—a place where one always imagined one only met persons with whom one’s purse would be safe.

“It was last Monday that an amiable personage—whose assumed manners suggested imbecility—carried on a system with cards which has no connection with honesty.

“Ever since yesterday Major H— has been the object of a stringent surveillance, called into existence by the extraordinary fortune of having ‘passed’ only seventeen times on Sunday last during a game of chemin de fer.

“Suspicion was all the stronger from the cards when counted being found to exceed the proper number by twenty-seven.

“It was under these circumstances that the Major bought the bank at auction last Monday, and lost the first two coups.

“It was evidently sowing to reap, for after the second coup, not having sufficient on the table to pay the winners, and while still holding the cards in his left hand, he drew with his right hand a note case from his pocket under which were a certain number of packed cards.

“He then placed the case and the packed cards on the pack he had already in his left hand, and putting the entire packet before him, deliberately opened his note case, whence protruded several notes that had evidently been exposed with intention.

“At this moment a member who had not lost a single detail of this scene of ‘prestidigitation,’ stood up and said: ‘Gentlemen, I play no longer, and if you take my advice you will do the same!’

“The warning was not in vain.

“It was accepted by all but one player, who placed on the table about sixty Louis.

“The Major H—, in no way disconcerted, again dealt, and turned up nine—a nine of diamonds.

“There was no further room for doubt, and all the players left their seats.

“The game was suspended, the cards were counted; there were twenty-seven too many; and contained five nines of diamonds instead of four.

“Immediately the committee was called together, and the expulsion of Major H— was unanimously decided upon. It was also decided that the Major should be turned out of the room he had occupied in the club for two days.” I approve entirely the decision of the committee, but regret that these Major H—s get off with expulsion, when the proper place would be the _correctionnelle_.

No more liberal player ever existed than George Hay.

On one occasion at a humdrum station in India, where he had started an unpretentious club, a sporting tailor who had lost considerably begged him to continue. “Give me my revenge,” he implored, and for three days and three nights, with periodical adjournments for a tub, this amiable punter continued giving the revenge. But Fate, alas! was against the little Snipper, and on the third day the score showed a colossal sum against him.

“This can’t go on,” pleaded George. “Why, man, I shall be placed under arrest for absence without leave; besides which, I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Only one more chance,” whined the tailor.

“Very well,” replied George, “you owe me” (and he named a considerable sum). “I’ll play you one game double or quits.”

The tailor pondered for some moments, and then replied:

“Look here, Captain Hay, I have a wife and four children, and I can’t afford to go ‘sudden death,’ but I’ll play you the best out of three, double or quits.”

Failing to catch the subtlety of this logic, George consented, and the result was again against the tailor.

“Now,” said this noble punter, “I’ve complied with all your requests. Nature won’t permit me to continue, but I’ll tell you what I _will_ do,” and ringing the bell, he ordered the waiter to bring in the list of members.

Scanning the names and counting the number, he again addressed the tailor:

“Look here. We have, I see, fifty-four members; but old Crutchley and the Chaplain needn’t count. You shall make every member of the club a black velvet knickerbocker suit with scarlet hose, and a cap, and henceforth we are quits.”

Prudes and strict sticklers for propriety may argue that the man was a gambler, and consequently heartless and good for nothing; but after events proved that although dire calamity overtook him, he was of a noble, generous nature.

Despite the above incident, the Pindee Club played a very strict game, and every member before sitting down carefully adjusted a pair of green spectacles.