The latter advanced Rigby a large sum, which enabled him to adjust
matters regarding the missing money, whilst the bill of confiscation
was dropped, its introducer being an intimate friend of the former
Paymaster.
Rigby's nephew and heir soon after married Rumbold's daughter, so all
ended happily owing, as it was said, to Rigby's former devotion to
hazard.
Mr. Rigby appears to have been a generous man, as the following
anecdote shows. Being one evening at a hazard-table in Dublin he was
very successful; and having won a considerable sum, he was putting it
in his purse when a person behind said in a low voice to himself, "Had
I that sum, what a happy man should I be!" Mr. Rigby, without looking
back, put the purse over his shoulder, saying, "Take it, my friend, and
be happy." The stranger made no reply, but accepted it, and retired.
Every one present was astonished at Mr. Rigby's uncommon beneficence,
whilst he derived additional pleasure from being informed that the
person who had received the benefit was a half-pay officer in great
distress. Some years after, a gentleman waited upon him in his own
equipage, and being introduced to Mr. Rigby, acquainted him that he
came to acquit a debt that he had contracted with him in Dublin. Mr.
Rigby was greatly surprised at this declaration, as he was an entire
stranger. "Yes, sir," continued the visitor, "you assisted me with
above a hundred pounds at a time that I was in the utmost indigence,
without knowing or even seeing me"; and then related the affair at the
gaming-table. "With that money," continued the stranger, "I was enabled
to pay some debts and fit myself out for India, where I have been so
fortunate as to make an ample fortune." Mr. Rigby declined to take
the money, but, through the pressing solicitations of the gentleman,
accepted a valuable diamond ring.
The strange incidents which arose at the old hazard-tables, frequented
as they were by all sorts and conditions of men, often produced strange
changes in men's lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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