Sir John Pocklington was, on the
contrary, the dirty little snuffy man who cried out so about the bad
quality of the beer, and grumbled at being overcharged three-halfpence
for a herring, seated at the next table to Jubber on the day when some
one pointed the Baronet out to me.
Take a different sort of mystery. I see, for instance, old Fawney
stealing round the rooms of the Club, with glassy, meaningless eyes,
and an endless greasy simper--he fawns on everybody he meets, and
shakes hands with you, and blesses you, and betrays the most tender and
astonishing interest in your welfare. You know him to be a quack and a
rogue, and he knows you know it. But he wriggles on his way, and leaves
a track of slimy flattery after him wherever he goes. Who can penetrate
that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You
don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have
only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the
presence of a knave--beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is a secret to
you.
I think I like to speculate on the young men best. Their play is opener.
You know the cards in their hand, as it were. Take, for example, Messrs.
Spavin and Cockspur.
A specimen or two of the above sort of young fellows may be found, I
believe, at most Clubs. They know nobody. They bring a fine smell of
cigars into the room with them, and they growl together, in a corner,
about sporting matters.
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