The Mark of Cain | Page 3

jester and a good fellow. In manner he was familiar,
with a kind of deference, too, and reserve, "like a dog that is always
wagging his tail and deprecating a kick," thought Barton grimly, as he
watched the other's genial advance.
"He's going to say good-night, bless him," thought Maitland gratefully.
"Now the others will be moving too, I hope!"
So Maitland rose with much alacrity as Cranley approached him. To
stand up would show, he thought, that he was not inhospitably eager to
detain the parting guest.
"Good-night, Mr. Maitland," said the senior, holding out his hand.

"It is still early," said the host, doing his best to play his part. "Must
you really go?"
"Yes; the night's young" (it was about half-past twelve), "but I have a
kind of engagement to look in at the Cockpit, and three or four of your
young friends here are anxious to come with me, and see how we keep
it up round there. Perhaps you and your friend will walk with us." Here
he bowed slightly in the direction of Barton.
"There will be a little bac going on," he continued--"un petit bac de
santé; and these boys tell me they have never played anything more
elevating than loo."
"I'm afraid I am no good at a round game," answered Maitland, who
had played at his Aunt's at Christmas, and who now observed with
delight that everyone was moving; "but here is Barton, who will be
happy to accompany you, I daresay."
"If you're for a frolic, boys," said Barton, quoting Dr. Johnson, and
looking rather at the younger men than at Cranley, "why, I will not balk
you. Good-night, Maitland."
And he shook hands with his host.
"Good-nights" were uttered in every direction; sticks, hats, and
umbrellas were hunted up; and while Maitland, half-asleep, was being
whirled to his rooms in Bloomsbury in a hansom, his guests made the
frozen pavement of Piccadilly ring beneath their elegant heels.
"It is only round the corner," said Cranley to the four or five men who
accompanied him. "The Cockpit, where I am taking you, is in a
fashionable slum off St. James's. We're just there."
There was nothing either meretricious or sinister in the aspect of that
favored resort, the Cockpit, as the Decade Club was familiarly called
by its friends--and enemies. Two young Merton men and the freshman
from New, who were enjoying their Christmas vacation in town, and
had been dining with Maitland, were a little disappointed in the

appearance of the place. They had hoped to knock mysteriously at a
back door in a lane, and to be shown, after investigating through a
loopholed wicket, into a narrow staircase, which, again, should open on
halls of light, full of blazing wax candles and magnificent lacqueys,
while a small mysterious man would point out the secret hiding-room,
and the passages leading on to the roof or into the next house, in case of
a raid by the police. Such was the old idea of a "Hell;" but the advance
of Thought has altered all these early notions. The Decade Club was
like any other small club. A current of warm air, charged with
tobacco-smoke, rushed forth into the frosty night when the swinging
door was opened; a sleepy porter looked out of his little nest, and
Cranley wrote the names of the companions he introduced in a book
which was kept for that purpose.
"Now you are free of the Cockpit for the night," he said, genially. "It's a
livelier place, in the small hours, than that classical Olympic we've just
left."
They went upstairs, passing the doors of one or two rooms, lit up but
empty, except for two or three men who were sleeping in
uncomfortable attitudes on sofas. The whole of the breadth of the first
floor, all the drawing-room of the house before it became a club, had
been turned into a card-room, from which brilliant lights, voices, and a
heavy odor of tobacco and alcohol poured out when the door was
opened. A long green baize-covered table, of very light wood, ran
down the centre of the room, while refreshments stood on smaller
tables, and a servant out of livery sat, half-asleep, behind a great desk
in the remotest corner. There were several empty chairs round the green
baize-covered table, at which some twenty men were sitting, with
money before them; while one, in the middle, dealt out the cards on a
broad flap of smooth black leather let into the baize. Every now and
then he threw the cards he had been dealing into a kind of well in the
table, and after every deal he raked up his winnings with a rake, or
distributed gold and counters to the winners, as mechanically as if he