The Brown Mask | Page 2

had also a keen eye for business. Her favours had to be paid for, and even from the handsomest of her customers a kiss had never been known to settle a score. The "Punch-Bowl" was no place for empty pockets, and bad luck was rather a crime than an excuse. When it pleased her the landlady could tell many tales of other fine gentlemen she had known and would never see again, and she always gave the impression that she considered her former customers far superior to her present ones. Perhaps she found the comparison good for her business since she spoke to vain men. She had become reminiscent this evening.
"The very night before he was taken he sat where you're sitting," she said, pointing to one of her customers who was seated by the hearth. "Ah! He made a good end of it did Jim o' the Green Coat; kicked off his boots as if they were an old pair he had done with, and threw the ordinary out of the cart, saying he had no time to waste on him just then. I was there and saw it all."
There was silence as she concluded her glowing tale. Depression may take hold of the most careless and light-hearted for a moment, and even the attraction of making a good end, with an opportunity of spurning a worthless ordinary, cannot always appeal. The landlady had contrived to make her story vivid, and furtive glances were cast at the individual who occupied the seat she had indicated. There suddenly appeared to be something fatal in it and ample reason why a man might congratulate himself on being seated elsewhere. The occupant was the least concerned. He had taken the most comfortable place in the room; it seemed to be rightly his by virtue of his dress and bearing. He had the grand air as having mixed in high society, his superiority was tacitly admitted by his companions, and the landlady had addressed herself especially to him, as though she knew him for a man of consequence.
"When the time comes you shall see me die game, too, I warrant," he laughed, draining his glass and passing it to be refilled. "One death is as good as another, and at Tyburn it comes quicker than to those who lie awaiting it in bed."
"That's true," said the landlady.
"I should hate to die in a bed," the man went on. "The open road for me and a quick finish. It's the best life if it isn't always as long as it might be. I wouldn't forsake it for anything the King could offer me. It's a merry time, with romance, love and adventure in it, with plenty to get and plenty to spend, with a seasoning of danger to give it piquancy--a gentleman's life from cock-crow to cock-crow, and not worthy of a passing thought is he who cannot make a good end of it. I'd sooner have the hangman for a bosom friend than a man who is likely to whimper on the day of reckoning. Did I tell you that a reverend bishop offered me fifty guineas for my mare the other day?"
"You sold her?" came the question in chorus.
"Sold her! No! I told him that she would be of little use to him, since no one but myself could get her up to a coach."
"Your impudence will be the death of you, John," laughed the landlady.
"That seems a fairly safe prophecy," answered Gentleman Jack--for so his companions named him--"still, I've heard of one bishop who took to the road in his leisure hours. He died of a sudden fever, it was said; but, for all that, he returned one night from a lonely ride across Hounslow Heath, and was most anxious to conceal the fact that somebody had put a bullet into him. My bishop may have become ambitious--indeed, I think he had, for he had intellect enough to understand my meaning and was not in the least scandalised."
"Then we may yet welcome him at the 'Punch-Bowl,'" said one man. "So far, this house has entertained no one higher in the church than a Fleet parson. I see no sin in drinking the bishop's good health and wishing him the speedy possession of a horse to match his ambition."
"Anyone may serve as a toast," said another; "but could a bishop be good company under any circumstances, think you?"
"Gad! why not?" asked Gentleman Jack. "He'd Spend his time trying to square his profession with his conscience maybe, and when a man is reduced to that, bishop or no bishop, there's humour enough, I warrant."
The health was drunk with laughter, and the air of depression which had followed the landlady's recital disappeared like clouds from an April sky. Each one had some story to