Mr. Losely, therefore, his hat on one side, lounged into the saloons of theatres, accompanied by a cohort of juvenile admirers, their hats on one side also, and returned to the pleasantest little suppers in his own apartment. There "the goblet" flowed—and after the goblet, cigars for some, and a rubber for all.
So puissant Losely's vitality, and so blessed by the stars his luck, that his form seemed to wax stronger and his purse fuller by this "life." No wonder he was all for a life of that kind; but the slight beings who tried to keep up with him grew thinner and thinner, and poorer and poorer; a few weeks made their cheeks spectral and their pockets a dismal void. Then, as some dropped off from sheer inanition, others whom they had decoyed by their praises of "Life" and its hero, came into the magic circle to fade and vanish in their turn.
In a space of time incredibly brief not a whist-player was left upon the field; the victorious Losely had trumped out the last! Some few, whom Nature had endowed more liberally than Fortune, still retained strength enough to sup—if asked;
"But none who came to sup remained to play."
"Plague on it," said Losely to Poole, as one afternoon they were dividing the final spoils. "Your friends are mightily soon cleaned out; could not even get up double dummy last night; and we must hit on some new plan for replenishing the coffers! You have rich relations; can't I help you to make them more useful?"
Said Dolly Poole, who was looking exceedingly bilious, and had become a martyr to chronic headache, "My relations are prigs! Some of them give me the cold shoulder, others—a great deal of jaw. But as for tin, I might as well scrape a flint for it. My uncle Sam is more anxious about my sins than the other codgers, because he is my godfather, and responsible for my sins, I suppose; and he says he will put me in the way of being respectable. My head's splitting—"
"Wood does split till it is seasoned," answered Losely. "Good fellow, uncle Sam! He'll put you in the way of tin; nothing else makes a man respectable."
"Yes—so he says; a girl with money—"
"A wife—tin canister! Introduce me to her, and she shall be tied to you."
Samuel Dolly did not appear to relish the idea of such an introduction. "I have not been introduced to her myself," said he. "But if you advise me to be spliced, why don't you get
