"I tell you it's all gone; more than five thousand pounds, and my watch and chain; I have not half a franc in my possession.""That is unfortunate indeed," said the /maitre d'hotel/, looking graver than ever, "because there is my bill to settle.""Oh, hang your bill!" cried Richard. "/That/ will be all right. I must telegraph to my father at once.""But how is monsieur to telegraph if he has no money?"It was probably the first time in his life that the young fellow had ever understood how inconvenient a thing is poverty. What also amazed him beyond measure was the man's manner; yesterday, and all other days, it had been polite to obsequiousness; now it was dry almost to insolence. It seemed, indeed, to imply some doubt of the bona fides of his guest--that he might not, in short, be much better than honest John himself, of whom he was possibly the confederate; that the whole story was a trumped-up one to account for the inability to meet his bill. As to his having won largely at the tables, that might be true enough; but he also might have lost it all, and more with it; money changes hands at Monte Carlo very rapidly.
In the end, however, and not without much objection, the landlord advanced a sufficient sum to enable Richard to telegraph home. He also permitted him to stay on at the hotel, stipulating, however, that he should call for no wine, nor indulge in anything expensive--a humiliating arrangement enough, but not so much so as the terms of another proviso, that he was never to enter the gambling saloon or go beyond the public gardens. Even there he was under surveillance, and it was, in short, quite clear that he was suspected of an intention to run away without paying his bill--perhaps even of joining his "confederate," Mr. John Maitland.
The only thing that comforted Richard was the conviction that he should have a remittance from his father in a few hours; but nothing of thesort, not even a telegram, arrived. Day after day went by, and the young fellow was in despair; he felt like a pariah, for he had been so occupied with the tables that he had made no friends; and his few acquaintances looked askance at him, as being under a cloud, with the precise nature of which they were unacquainted. Friendless and penniless in a foreign land, his spirit was utterly broken, and he began to understand what a fool he had made of himself; especially how ungratefully he had behaved to his father, without whom it was not so easy to "get on," it appeared, as he had imagined. He saw, too, the evil of his conduct in having thrust a temptation in the way of honest John too great to be resisted. The police could hear no news of him, and, indeed, seemed very incredulous with respect to Richard's account of the matter.
On the fourth day Richard received a letter from his father of the gravest kind, though expressed in the most affectionate terms. He hardly alluded to the immediate misfortune that had happened to him, but spoke of the anxiety and alarm which his conduct had caused his mother and himself. "I enclose you a check," he wrote, "just sufficient to comfortably bring you home and pay your hotel bill, and exceedingly regret that I cannot trust my son with more--lest he should risk it in a way that gives his mother and myself more distress of mind than I can express."Richard's heart was touched, as it well might have been; though perhaps the condition of mind in which his father's communication found him had something to do with it. By that night's mail he despatched a letter home which gave the greatest delight at the Court, and also at the vicarage, for Mr. Luscombe, full of pride and joy, brought it to my father to read. "I have been very foolish, sir, and very wicked," it ran. "I believe I should have been dead by this time had not Maitland stolen my money (so that I have no reason to feel very angry with him) and deprived me of the means of suicide. I give you my word of honour that I will never gamble again."Lady Jane sent a telegram to meet Master Richard in Paris, to say what a dear good boy he was, and how happy he had made her. This did not surprise him, but what did astonish him very much on arriving at the Court was that John Maitland opened the door for him.
"Why, you old scoundrel!"
"Yes, sir, I know; I'm a thief and all that, but I did it for the best; I did, indeed."Though the fatted calf was killed for Master Richard, he had by no means returned like the prodigal son. On the contrary, he had sent home a remittance, as it were, by the butler, of more than five thousand pounds. The whole plot had been devised by honest John as the only method of extricating Master Richard from that Monte Carlo spider's web, and had been carried out by the help of the /maitre d'hotel/, with the squire's approval. And to do the young fellow justice, he never resented the trick that had been played upon him.
Richard was not sent abroad again, but to Cambridge, where eventually he took a fourth-class (poll) degree; and Lady Jane was as proud of it as if he had been senior wrangler. He kept his word, in spite of all temptations to the contrary, and never touched a card--a circumstance which drove him to take a fair amount of exercise, and, in consequence, he steadily improved in health. He was sometimes chaffed by his companions for his abstinence from play; they should have thought he was the last man to be afraid of losing his money.
"You are right, so far," he would answer, drily; "but the fact is, I have had enough of winning."To which they would reply:
"Oh yes, we dare say," an elliptical expression, which conveyed disbelief.
He never told them the story of his Monte Carlo experiences; but in the vacations he would often talk to honest John about them. We may be sure that that faithful retainer did not go unrewarded for his fraudulent act.
