Lookup's gambling career, though successful, was not uniformly smooth; and on one occasion he got himself very awkwardly entangled in the meshes of the law. A gentleman, who had lost between three and four hundred pounds to Lookup at Cribbage, being persuaded that there had been "a pull" upon him, brought an action against Lookup for double damages, according to the statute made and provided for the special protection of the Tom-Noddy class of gamesters,--pitiful, whimpering, greedy fools, who call upon the world to commiserate their losses, though occasioned solely by their attempts on the purses of people more knowing, though not a whit more knavish, than themselves. In the course of some proceedings arising out of this action, Lookup, through the blunder of his attorney, it is said, swore to the truth of a circumstance which was subsequently proved to be false. Lookup was hereupon prosecuted for perjury, and imprisoned; and only escaped the pillory in consequence of a flaw in the indictment: the blunder of his own attorney brings him into peril, and the blunder of his opponent's sets him free; John a-Nokes's broken arm is a set-off against Tom a-Styles's broken leg; each party is left to pay his own costs, and thus the Law at least is satisfied. The oyster is swallowed, and the scales of justice are evenly balanced with a shell in each. Lookup, like his contemporary, Elwes the miser, who was also a great card-player, frequently lost large sums by projects which he was allured to engage in by the tempting bait of a large return for his capital; a corrective occasionally administered by fortune to her spoiled children when they leave their old successful course of retail trickery, to embark as merchant adventurers on the sea of speculation. But though fortune frowned on him when he gave up gaming as a regular profession, to become the principal partner in a saltpetre manufactory at Chelsea, she yet looked favorably on some of his other speculations which were more in accordance with his old vocation: the shares which he held in several privateers, in the French war from 1758 to 1763, paid well; and he was highly successful as an adventurer in the slave trade. He is said to have died "in harness,"--that is, with cards in his hand,--when engaged in playing at his favorite game of Humbug, or two-handed Whist. Foote--who is supposed to have represented him in the character of Loader, in the farce of the Minor--is said to have observed, on learning the circumstances of his death, that "Lookup was humbugged out of the world at last." He died in November, 1770, aged about seventy. His biographer thus sums up his character: "Upon the whole, Mr. Lookup was as extraordinary a person as we have met with for several years in the metropolis. He possessed a great share of good sense, cultivated by a long acquaintance with the world; had a smattering of learning, and a pretty retentive memory; was fluent in words, and of a ready imagination.