"Capital, gentlemen, capital!" from Pisgah.
"They demanded that we should toil for ourselves. Did we do so? Never! We appealed to the chances, as you have done; we would fight the Yankee, but we would not work. You would fight the bank, but you would not slave; and as you have won at Wisbaden, so have we, in a thousand glorious contests. Fill, then, gentlemen, to the toast which your chairman has announced:
"'The Mother Country and the Colony--good luck to both!'"
The applause which ensued was of such a nature that the proprietors below endeavored to hasten the conclusion of the dinner by sending up the bill. Pisgah and the _blanchisseuse_ were embracing in a spirited way, and Simp was holding back Freckle, who--persuaded that Hugenot's remarks were in some way derogatory to himself--wished to toss down his gauntlet.
"The next toast, gentlemen of the Colony," said Andy Plade, "is to be dispatched immediately by the waiter, whom you see upon my right hand, to the office of the telegraph; thence to Mr. Risque at Wisbaden:
"'The Southern exiles; doubtless the most immethodical men alive; but the results prove they have the best system: no _Risque_, no winnings.'
"You will see, gentlemen," continued Mr. Plade, when the enthusiasm had subsided, "that I place the toast in this envelope. It will go in two minutes to Mr. Auburn Risque!"
The waiter started for the door; it was dashed open in his face, and splattered, dirty, and travel-worn, Auburn Risque himself stood like an apparition on the threshold.
"Perdition!" thundered Plade, staggered and pale-faced; "you were not to break the bank till to-morrow."
The Colony, sober or inebriate, clustered about the door, and held to each other that they might hear the explanation aright.
Auburn Risque straightened himself and glared upon all the besiegers, till his pock-marked face grew white as leprosy, and every spot in his secretive eye faded out in the glitter of his defiance.
"To-morrow?" he said, in a voice hard, passionless, inflectionless; "how could one break the bank to-morrow, when all his money was gone yesterday?"
"Gone!" repeated the Colony, in a breath rather than a voice, and reeling as if a galvanic current had passed through the circle--"Gone!"