The next we hear of Mascalbruni was his being at Cheltenham. There he frequented the rooms under very different auspices, and had to compete with another order of players than those he had been in the habit of duping. He was narrowly watched, and detected in the act of pocketing a queen from an _écarté_ pack. The consequence was his expulsion from the club with ignominy. His name was placarded, and his fame, or rather infamy, noised with a winged speed all over the United Kingdom. It was no longer a place for him. In the course of the ensuing week the following announcement was made in a well-known and widely-circulated weekly paper. It was headed-- "_An Italian black sheep._ "We hope in a short time to present our readers with the exploits of a new Count Fathom, a _soi disant_ marchese, better known than trusted, the two first syllables of whose name more than rhyme with _rascal_. And as it is our duty to un-_mask all_ such, we shall confine ourselves at present to saying that he has been weighed at a fashionable watering-place in Gloucestershire, and found wanting, or rather practising certain sleights of hand for which the charlatans of his own country are notorious. He had better sing small here!" Mascalbruni took the vulgar hint. His funds were nearly exhausted, and with but a few louis in his pocket he embarked at Dover, and once more repaired to Paris. His prospects were widely different from those with which he had left it. To play the game I have described at _rouge et noir_, requires a capital. Every respectable house was closed against him. He now disguised his appearance, so that his former acquaintance should not be able to recognise him, and frequented the lowest hells--those _cloacæ_, the resort of all the _vilains_ and _chenapans_, the lowest dregs of the metropolis. By what practices this _mauvais sujet_ contrived to support life here for some years is best known to the police, where his name stands chronicled pretty legibly; it is probable that he passed much of that time in one of the prisons, or on the roads. Eighteen months had now elapsed, and the Honourable Mr. M. with his bride, to whom he had been a short time married, took an apartment in the Rue d'Artois. A man in a cloak--an _embocado_,--which means one who enwraps his face in his mantle so that only his eyes are visible,--was observed from the windows often passing and repassing the hotel. The novelty of the costume attracted the attention of Mrs. M.; and the blackness of his eyes, and their peculiarly gloomy expression, made her take him for a Spaniard. She more than once pointed him out to her husband, and said one day, "Look, William, there stands that man again. He answers your description of a bandit, and makes me shudder to look at him." "Don't be alarmed, dear," replied Mr. M. smilingly; "we are not at Terracina. It will be time enough to be frightened then."