I See the Ring of the Persian Magician.

‘That’s a devilish fine girl,’ said Mark Wylder.

He was sitting at this moment on the billiard table, with his coat off and his cue in his hand, and had lighted a cigar. He and I had just had a game, and were tired of it.

‘Who?’ I asked. He was looking on me from the corners of his eyes, and smiling in a sly, rakish way, that no man likes in another.

‘Radie Lake — she’s a splendid girl, by Jove! Don’t you think so? and she liked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was thin then, but she has plumped out a bit, and improved every way.’

Whatever else he was, Mark was certainly no beauty; — a little short he was, and rather square — one shoulder a thought higher than the other — and a slight, energetic hitch in it when he walked. His features in profile had something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad — very brown, rather a bloodless brown — and he had a pair of great, dense, vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth — his only really good point — for his eyes were a small cunning, gray pair; and this, perhaps, was the reason why he had contracted his habit of laughing and grinning a good deal more than the fun of the dialogue always warranted.

This sea-monster smoked here as unceremoniously as he would have done in ‘Rees’s Divan,’ and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water. He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during our separation. He talked of his fiancée as he might of an opera-girl almost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the same style.

‘Yes, she is — she’s very well; but hang it, Wylder, you’re a married man now, and must give up talking that way. People won’t like it, you know; they’ll take it to mean more than it does, and you oughtn’t. Let us have another game.’

‘By-and-by; what do you think of Larkin?’ asked Wylder, with a sly glance from the corners of his eyes. ‘I think he prays rather more than is good for his clients; mind I spell it with an ‘a,’ not with an ‘e;’ but hang it, for an attorney, you know, and such a sharp chap, it does seem to me rather a — a joke, eh?’

‘He bears a good character among the townspeople, doesn’t he? And I don’t see that it can do him any harm, remembering that he has a soul to be saved.’

‘Or the other thing, eh?’ laughed Wylder. ‘But I think he comes it a little too strong — two sermons last Sunday, and a prayer-meeting at nine o’clock?’

‘Well, it won’t do him any harm,’ I repeated.

‘Harm! O, let Jos. Larkin alone for that. It gets him all the religious business of the county; and there are nice pickings among the charities, and endowments, and purchases of building sites, and trust deeds; I dare say it brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?’ And Wylder laughed again. ‘It has broken up his hard, proud heart,’ he says; ‘but it left him a devilish hard head, I told him, and I think it sharpens his wits.’

‘I rather think you’ll find him a useful man; and to be so in his line of business he must have his wits about him, I can tell you.’

‘He amused me devilishly,’ said Wylder, ‘with a sort of exhortation he treated me to; he’s a delightfully impudent chap, and gave me to understand I was a limb of the Devil, and he a saint. I told him I was better than he, in my humble opinion, and so I am, by chalks. I know very well I’m a miserable sinner, but there’s mercy above, and I don’t hide my faults. I don’t set up for a light or a saint; I’m just what the Prayer-book says — neither more nor less — a miserable sinner. There’s only one good thing I can safely say for myself — I am no Pharisee; that’s all; I air no religious prig, puffing myself, and trusting to forms, making long prayers in the market-place’ (Mark’s quotations were paraphrastic), ‘and thinking of nothing but the uppermost seats in the synagogue, and broad borders, and the praise of men — hang them, I hate those fellows.’

So Mark, like other men we meet with, was proud of being a Publican; and his prayer was —‘I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, spiritually proud, formalists, hypocrites, or even as this Pharisee.’

‘Do you wish another game?’ I asked.

‘Just now,’ said Wylder, emitting first a thin stream of smoke, and watching its ascent. ‘Dorcas is the belle of the county; and she likes me, though she’s odd, and don’t show it the way other girls would. But a fellow knows pretty well when a girl likes him, and you know the marriage is a sensible sort of thing, and I’m determined, of course, to carry it through; but, hang it, a fellow can’t help thinking sometimes there are other things besides money, and Dorcas is not my style. Rachel’s more that way; she’s a tremendious fine girl, by Jove! and a spirited minx, too; and I think,’ he added, with an oath, having first taken two puffs at his cigar, ‘if I had seen her first, I’d have thought twice before I’d have got myself into this business.’

I only smiled and shook my head. I did not believe a word of it. Yet, perhaps, I was wrong. He knew very well how to take care of his money; in fact, compared with other young fellows, he was a bit of a screw. But he could do a handsome and generous thing for himself. His selfishness would expand nobly, and rise above his prudential considerations, and drown them sometimes; and he was the sort of person, who, if the fancy were strong enough, might marry in haste, and repent — and make his wife, too, repent — at leisure.

‘What do you laugh at, Charlie?’ said Wylder, grinning himself.

‘At your confounded grumbling, Mark. The luckiest dog in England! Will nothing content you?’

‘Why, I grumble very little, I think, considering how well off I am,’ rejoined he, with a laugh.

‘Grumble! If you had a particle of gratitude, you’d build a temple to Fortune — you&rsqu............