ose that you
doubt my competence to risk such a comtemptible sum, or is it to your
own inability alone you would testify?"

A very acrimonious dispute followed, of which I have no clear
recollection. I only remember how Hammond was out-and out for the
priest, and Oxley too tipsy to take _my_ part with any efficiency. At
last--Row arranged I can't say--peace was restored, and the next thing
I can recall was listening to Father Dyke giving a long, and of course
a most fabulous, history of a ring that he wore on his second finger.
It was given by the Pretender, he said, to his uncle, the celebrated
Carmelite monk, Lawrence O'Kelly, who for years bad followed the young
prince's fortunes. It was an onyx, with the letters C. E. S. engraved
on it. Keldrum took an immense fancy to it; he protested that everything
that attached to that unhappy family possessed in his eyes an uncommon
interest. "If you have a fancy to take up Potto's wager," said he,
laughingly, "I'll give you fifty pounds for your signet ring."

The priest demurred; Hammond interposed; then there was more discussion,
now warm, now jocose. Oxley tried to suggest something, which we all
laughed at. Keldrum placed the backgammon board meanwhile; but I can
give no clear account of what ensued, though I remember that the terms
of our wager were committed to writing by Hammond, and signed by Father
D. and myself, and in the conditions there figured a certain ring,
guaranteed to have belonged to and been worn by his Royal Highness
Charles Edward, and a cream-colored horse, equally guaranteed as the
produce of a Caucasian mare presented by the late Emperor Nicholas to
the present owner. The document was witnessed by all three, Oxley's name
written in two letters, and a flourish. After that, I played, and lost!

CHAPTER IV. PLEASANT REFLECTIONS ON AWAKING.

I can recall to this very hour the sensations of headache and misery
with which I awoke the morning after this debauch. Backing pain it was,
with a sort of tremulous beating all through the brain, as though a
small engine had been set to work there, and that piston and boiler and
connecting-rod were all banging, fizzing, and vibrating amid my fevered
senses. I was, besides, much puzzled to know where I was, and how I
had come there. Controversial divinity, genealogy, horse-racing, the
peerage, and "double sixes" were dancing a wild cotillon through my
brain; and although a waiter more than once cautiously obt