ld throw
away a handful of gold on some folly of the moment or extravagant
debauch; and I had heard an old one-armed soldier, who sometimes held
his horse at the club door, utter blessings, when he had ridden out
of hearing, on his kind heart and open hand. These and similar little
traits that came under my notice, made me regret to see him going post
to perdition. That he was doing so, I could not for one moment doubt.
His extravagance knew no limit, and in six months he must have got
through as many years' income. Wherever pleasure was to be had, no
matter at what price, Oakley was to be seen.--Upon a revenue overrated
at five hundred a-year, he kept half a dozen horses, a cab, and a
strange nondescript vehicle, made after an eccentric design of his
own, and which everybody turned to look at, as he drove down
Piccadilly of an afternoon, on his way to the Park. He had his stall
at the opera, of course, and an elegant set of apartments in the most
expensive street in London, where he gave suppers and dinners of
extravagant delicacy to thirsty friends and greedy _danseuses_. The
former showed their gratitude for his good cheer by winning his money
at cards; the latter evinced their affection by carrying off the
costly nicknacks that strewed his rooms, and by taking his diamond
shirt-pins to fasten their shawls. In short, he regularly delivered
himself over to the harpies. In addition to these minor drafts upon
his exchequer, came others of a more serious nature. He played high,
and never refused a bet. Like many silly young men (and some silly old
ones), he had a blind veneration for rank, and held that a lord could
do no wrong. Even a baronetcy conferred a certain degree of
infallibility in his eyes. No amount of respectable affidavits would
have convinced him that if Lord Rufus Slam, who not unfrequently
condescended to win a cool fifty of him at ecarte, did not turn the
king each time he dealt, it was only because he despised so hackneyed
a swindle, and had other ways of securing the game, equally nefarious
but less palpable. Neither would it have been possible to persuade him
that Sir Tantivy Martingale, "that prime fellow and thorough
sportsman," as Frank admiringly and confidingly styled him, was
capable of taking his bet upon a horse which he, the aforesaid Sir
Tantivy, had just made "safe to lose." In short, poor Oakley, who,
during his father's lifetime, had been little, if at all, in London,
thought himself exc