Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

228                                  KIDNAPPED.
by all accounts, made such a wreck of him, had even
then begun to show itself.
We were no sooner done eating than Cluny brought
out an old, thumbed, greasy pack of cards, such as you
may find in a mean inn; and his eyes brightened in his
face as he proposed that we should fall to playing.
Now this was one of the things I had been brought
up to eschew like disgrace; it being held by my father
neither the part of a Christian nor yet of a gentleman,
to set his own livelihood and fish for that of others, on
the cast of painted pasteboard. To be sure, I might
have pleaded my fatigue, which was excuse enough;
but I thought it behoved that I should bear a testimony.
I must have got very red in the face, but I spoke
steadily, and told them I had 110 call to be a judge of
others, but for my own part, it was a matter in which I
had no clearness.
Cluny stopped mingling the cards. "What in deil's
name is this?" says he. " What kind of Whiggish, cant-
ing talk is this, for the house of Cluny Macpherson?"
"I will put my hand in the fire for Mr. Balfour,"
says Alan. " He is an honest and a mettle gentleman,
and I would have ye bear in mind who says it. I bear
a king's name," says he, cocking his hat; "and I and
any that I call friend are company for the best. But
the gentleman is tired, and should sleep; if he has no
mind to the cartes, it will never hinder you and me.
And I'm fit and willing, sir, to play ye any game that
ye can name."