Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 89

"The Tavistock; Covent Garden."

"Johnny, what the mischief brings _him_ here?" whispered Tod, as we went downstairs.

"I don't know. I thought it must be his ghost at first."

From the billiard-rooms we went on to Gusty's chambers, and found him at home with some friends. He served out wine, with cold brandy-and-water for Crayton--who despised anything less. They sat down to cards--loo.

Tod did not play. Complaining of a racking headache, he sat apart in a corner. I stood in another, for all the chairs were occupied. Altogether the party seemed to want life, and broke up soon.

"Was it an excuse to avoid playing, Tod?" I asked, as we walked home.

"Was what an excuse?"

"Your headache."

"If your head were beating as mine is, Johnny, you wouldn't call it an excuse. You'll be a m.u.f.f to the end of your days."

"Well, I thought it might be that."

"Did you! If I made up my mind not to play, I should tell it out straightforwardly: not put forth any shuffling 'excuse.'"

"Any way, a headache's better than losing your money."

"Don't bother."

I got to the Tavistock at five minutes past eleven, and found Mr.

Brandon reading the _Times_. He looked at me over the top of it, as if he were surprised.

"So you _have_ come, Mr. Johnny!"

"Yes, sir. I turned up the wrong street and missed my way: it has made me a little late."

"Oh, that's the reason, is it," said Mr. Brandon. "I thought perhaps a young man, who has been initiated into the ways of London life, might no longer consider it necessary to attend to the requests of his elders."

"But would you think that of me, sir?"

Mr. Brandon put the newspaper on the table with a dash, and burst out with as much feeling as his weak voice would allow him.

"Johnny Ludlow, I'd rather have seen you come to sweep a crossing in this vile town, than to frequent one of its public billiard-rooms!"

"But I don't frequent them, Mr. Brandon."

"How many times have you been in?"

"Twice in the one where you saw me: once in another. Three times in all."

"That's three times too much. Have you played?"

"No, sir; there's never any room for me."

"Do you bet?"

"Oh no."

"What do you go for, then?"

"I've only gone in with the others when I have been out with them."

"Pell's sons and the Honourable Mr. Crayton. Rather ostentatious of you, Johnny Ludlow, to hasten to tell me he was the 'Honourable.'"

My face flushed. I had not said it in that light.

"One day at Persh.o.r.e Fair, in a booth, the clown jumped on to the boards and introduced himself," continued Mr. Brandon: "'I'm the clown, ladies and gentlemen,' said he. That's the Honourable Mr. Crayton, say you.--And so you have gone in with Mr. Crayton and the Pells!"

"And with Joseph Todhetley."

"Ay. And perhaps London will do him more harm than it will you; you're not much better than a boy yet, hardly up to bad things. I wonder what possessed Joe's father to let you two come up to stay with the Pells! I should have been above it in his place."

"Above it? Why, Mr. Brandon, they live in ten times the style we do."

"And spend twenty times as much over it. Who was thinking about style or cost, Mr. Johnny? Don't you mistake Richard for Robert."

He gave a flick to the newspaper, and stared me full in the face. I did not venture to speak.

"Johnny Ludlow, I don't like your having been initiated into the iniquities of fast life--as met with in billiard-rooms, and similar places."

"I have got no harm from them, sir."

"Perhaps not. But you might have got it."

I supposed I might: and thought of Tod and his losings.

"You have good principles, Johnny Ludlow, and you've a bit of sense in your head; and you have been taught to know that this world is not the end of things. Temptation is bad for the best, though. When I saw you in that place last night, looking on with eager eyes at the b.a.l.l.s, listening to the betting, I wished I had never let your father make me your guardian."

"I did not know my eyes or ears were so eager, sir. I don't think they were."

"Nonsense, boy: that goes as a matter of course. You have heard of gambling h.e.l.ls?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, a public billiard-room is not many degrees better. It is crowded with adventurers who live by their wits. Your needy 'honourables,'

who've not a sixpence of their own in their purses, and your low-lived blackguards, who have sprung from the sc.u.m of the population, are equally at home there. These men, the lord's son and the blackguard, must each make a living: whether by turf-betting, or dice, or cards, or pool--they must do it somehow. Is it a nice thing, pray, for you honest young fellows to frequent places where you must be their boon companions?"

"No, I don't think it is."

"Good, Johnny. Don't you go into one again--and keep young Todhetley out if you can. It is no place, I say, for an honest man and a gentleman: you can't touch pitch and not be defiled; neither can a youngster frequent these billiard-rooms and the company he meets in them, and come away unscathed. His name will get a mark against it.

That's not the worst: his _soul_ may get a mark upon it; and never be able to throw it off again during life. You turn mountebank, and dance at wakes, Johnny, rather than turn public billiard player. There's many an honest mountebank, dancing for the daily crust he puts into his mouth: I don't believe you'd find one honest man amongst billiard sharpers."