In vain did Haggard and Lord Spunyarn attempt to reassure the indignant vicar. Only on the return of Mrs. Haggard and Lucy did the Reverend John Dodd become comparatively tranquil. Under the soothing influence of beauty, however, the vicar forgot his woes.
The Haggards were heartily glad to leave town. The nasty scandal at the Pandemonium had been particularly irritating to Haggard personally. "Thank God," he said to himself, "the head of the family will probably never hear of it, unless Hetton should go out of his way to tell him; but I don't think he'd do that, he's not too particular himself, so it would be only a case of the pot calling the kettle, after all. It wasn't my fault. How could I know the young idiot was drugging himself with Chartreuse? I was too much interested in the game. Besides, some one was bound to have his money sooner or later; in fact," pondered the big man, "I've been rather ill-used, when I come to think of it. It's just my luck."
Just his luck! Yes, it was just his luck; just his luck to squander every farthing he possessed, and to be pitied by everybody when deported to do the best he could for himself. Just his luck to have what the Americans call a "high-old time" in Mexico, to hunt, to shoot, to enjoy the free wild life and absence of restraint in America. Just his luck to thoroughly clear out that wealthy gambler Don Emanuel Garcia, at poker; but then Haggard had all the qualifications for a poker player: he had the very luck which he grumbled at; good temper, for your thoroughly selfish man is far too fond of himself ever to be other than good-tempered; his "cheek" was unlimited, and in the big "flutter" with the Mexican, he had also had good cards. Given good luck, good temper, good "cheek," and good cards, a poker player is always invincible; so the Americans say, and they ought to know. Just his luck to become the possessor of a large sum of ready cash, when valuable land was going a-begging; just his luck at that precise moment to invest his easily-got winnings in the Mexican ranches and pastures, now worth ten times what they cost him. Just his luck to come home at the right moment to be accepted by the loveliest girl in Essex, a girl whose beauty had now even received the _imprimatur_ of so fastidious a judge as his Royal Highness. Just his luck to be adored by his young wife, and looked upon by her as a king of men; to be clothed in purple and fine raiment, with the possibility of a peerage and the possession of immense wealth in the future. But he was quite right in carping at her, for fortune, like other fickle jades, is more likely to be true if steadily abused.