Chapter 35

We are not worst at once--the course of evil
Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,
An infant's hand might stem its breach with clay;
But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy--
Ay, and religion too--shall strive in vain
To turn the headlong torrent.
_Old Play._

The Templars had been regaled by our friend Richie Moniplies in a
private chamber at Beaujeu's, where he might be considered as good
company; for he had exchanged his serving-man's cloak and jerkin for a
grave yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, but
such as might have befitted an older man than himself. He had
positively declined presenting himself at the ordinary, a point to
which his companions were very desirous to have brought him, for it
will be easily believed that such wags as Lowestoffe and his companion
were not indisposed to a little merriment at the expense of the raw
and pedantic Scotsman; besides the chance of easing him of a few
pieces, of which he appeared to have acquired considerable command.
But not even a succession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the
little brilliant atoms circulated like motes in the sun's rays, had
the least effect on Richie's sense of decorum. He retained the gravity
of a judge, even while he drank like a fish, partly from his own
natural inclination to good liquor, partly in the way of good
fellowship towards his guests. When the wine began to make some
innovation on their heads, Master Lowestoffe, tired, perhaps, of the
humours of Richie, who began to become yet more stoically
contradictory and dogmatical than even in the earlier part of the
entertainment, proposed to his friend to break up their debauch and
join the gamesters.

The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie discharged the reckoning
of the party, with a generous remuneration to the attendants, which
was received with cap and knee, and many assurances of--"Kindly
welcome, gentlemen."

"I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen," said Richie to his
companions,--"and I would you had cracked another quart ere you went,
or stayed to take some slight matter of supper, and a glass of
Rhenish. I thank you, however, for having graced my poor collation
thus far; and I commend you to fortune, in your own courses, for the
ordinary neither was, is, nor shall be, an element of mine."

"Fare thee well, then," said Lowestoffe, "most sapient and sententious
Master Moniplies. May you soon have another mortgage to redeem, and
may I be there to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as
heartily as you have done this day."

"Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so--but, if you
would but hear me