I got him the money he required; and we were about to set forth,

when he exclaimed abruptly:-"Put money in thy own purse, Clifford. It may be necessary to practise

a little ruse de guerre. In playing my game, it may be important

that you should deem to play one also. You have no scruples to

fling the dice or flirt the cards for the nonce."

"None! But I should like to know your plans. Tell me, in the first

place, your precise object."

"Simply to detect certain knaves, and save certain fools. The

knaves have ruined me, and I make no lamentations; but there are

others in their clutches still, quite as ignorant as myself, who

may be saved before they are stripped entirely. The object is not

a bad one; for the rest, trust to me. I mean no harm; a little

mischief only; and, at most, a tweak of one proboscis or more.

There's risk, of a certainty, as there is in sucking an egg; but

you are a man! Not like that d--d milksop, who gives up his friend

as soon as he gets poor, and proffers him a sermon by way of telling

him--precious information, truly--that he's in a fair way to the

devil. The toss of a copper for such friendship."

The humor of Kingsley tallied somewhat with my own. It had in it

a spice of recklessness which pleased me. Perhaps, too, it tended

somewhat to relieve and qualify the intenseness of that excitement

in my brain, which sometimes rose to such a pitch as led me

to apprehend madness. That I was a monomaniac has been admitted,

perhaps not a moment too soon for the author's candor. The sagacity

of the reader made him independent of the admission.

"Your beggar," said he, somewhat abruptly, "has the only true feeling

of independence. Absolutely, I never knew till now what it was to

be thoroughly indifferent to what might come to-morrow. I positively

care for nothing. I am the first prince Sans Souci. That shall

be my title when I get among the Cumanches. I will have a code of

laws and constitution to suit my particular humor, and my chief

penalties shall be inflicted upon your fellows who grunt. A sigh

shall incur a week's solitary confinement; a sour look, pillory;

and for a groan, the hypochondriac shall lose his head! My prime

minister shall be the fellow who can longest use his tongue without

losing his temper; and the man who can laugh and jest shall always

have his plate at my table. Good-humored people shall have peculiar

privileges. It shall be a certificate in one's favor, entitling

him to so many acres, that he takes the world kindly. Such a man

shall have two wives, provided he can keep them peacefully in the

same house. His daughters shall have dowries from government. The

prince of Sans Souci will himself provide for them."




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