On some evenings, there would, perhaps, be no play, and insufferably tedious would have been the hours from eleven till three but for the relief offered by some tragi-comic incident. The London season was about to open; the Newmarket Spring Meeting had just closed, and Tattersall’s, consequently, exhibited a slight gathering. The members of Crockford’s, as yet, presented a meagre attendance; the Opera Bills announced attractive novelties, and the minor theatres promised their many marvels. In fact, the busy, bustling hive of human interests was on the move. The dormant began to stir, the watchful to speculate; the beauty to take her promenade in the yet pale sunshine; the invalid to snatch his walk at the meridian hour; the gambler to devise his means of expense, and the banker-hell-keeper how to frustrate them. It was one evening, about this period, that a party entered to try the fortune of an hour. The result of the evening’s play was against the bank. One of the visitors won five hundred pounds, which, for a whim, he took away in gold. He tied the sovereigns up in a white pocket handkerchief, threw them over his shoulder, and, in that manner, walked up St James’s Street. From that night, the same party continued to visit us; and, with occasional droppers in of ex-colonels, majors, captains, etc., we, generally, made up a table. What! enter again, after having won five hundred pounds! ‘Oh! infatuated man,’ I hear the reader exclaim. Yes! for of all things unfathomable and absorbing, there is nothing so unfathomably deep as the desires of the human heart, when stimulated by the excitement of speculation. For some weeks the play had been constant, and, as the season advanced, the company increased, and the money began to return to the bank. Sometimes play began late, perhaps not till after one. Among our very constant visitors was a gallant captain. He came early, and was good to lose a hundred pounds, and satisfied to win fifty. His entrance was always met by a ready welcome. ‘Here comes the gallant captain! How are you, captain?’ ‘Hearty, thank ye!’ he replied. ‘I say, how was it that my cheque was not paid this morning?’ ‘Not paid! you’re joking, captain!’ ‘Joking!’ replied the captain. ‘No, I’ll be d—d if it is a joke.’ The captain, on the previous evening, having won, had put up his counters and wished for a fifty pound note. ‘Certainly,’ said one of the triumvirs, looking into the box. ‘A fifty, did you say, captain? I am sorry to say I have not got a fifty. Make it a hundred, captain. You will soon do it if you put it down a little spicy.’ ‘No,’ rejoined the captain, ‘I don’t want to play any more, for I must leave town early to-morrow morning.’ ‘Well; but what is to be done?’ said the manager. Then, calling to his partner, he inquired if he had a fifty pound note for Captain——. ‘No, I have not; but I will write a cheque for him; that will be all the same.’