Chapter 8

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　BARRY'S ADIEU TO THE MILITARY PROFESSION.You who have never been out of your country, know little what it isto hear a friendly voice in captivity; and there's many a man thatwill not understand the cause of the burst of feeling which I haveconfessed took place on my seeing my uncle. He never for a minutethought to question the truth of what I said. 'Mother of God!' criedhe, 'it's my brother Harry's son.' And I think in my heart he was asmuch affected as I was at thus suddenly finding one of his kindred;for he, too, was an exile from home, and a friendly voice, a look,brought the old country back to his memory again, and the old daysof his boyhood. 'I'd give five years of my life to see them again,'said he, after caressing me very warmly. 'What?' asked I. 'Why,'replied he, 'the green fields, and the river, and the old roundtower, and the burying-place at Ballybarry. 'Twas a shame for yourfather to part with the land, Redmond, that went so long with thename.'He then began to ask me concerning myself, and I gave him my historyat some length; at which the worthy gentleman laughed many times,saying, that I was a Barry all over. In the middle of my story hewould stop me, to make me stand back to back, and measure with him(by which I ascertained that our heights were the same, and that myuncle had a stiff knee, moreover, which made him walk in a peculiarway), and uttered, during the course of the narrative, a hundredexclamations of pity, and kindness, and sympathy. It was 'HolySaints!' and 'Mother of Heaven!' and 'Blessed Mary!' continually; bywhich, and with justice, I concluded that he was still devotedlyattached to the ancient faith of our family.It was with some difficulty that I came to explain to him the lastpart of my history, viz., that I was put into his service as a watchupon his actions, of which I was to give information in a certainquarter. When I told him (with a great deal of hesitation) of thisfact, he burst out laughing, and enjoyed the joke amazingly. 'Therascals!' said he; 'they think to catch me, do they? Why, Redmond,my chief conspiracy is a faro-bank. But the King is so jealous, thathe will see a spy in every person who comes to his miserable capitalin the great sandy desert here. Ah, my boy, I must show you Parisand Vienna!'I said there was nothing I longed for more than to see any city butBerlin, and should be delighted to be free of the odious militaryservice. Indeed, I thought, from his splendour of appearance, theknickknacks about the room, the gilded carriage in the remise, thatmy uncle was a man of vast property; and that he would purchase adozen, nay, a whole regiment of substitutes, in order to restore meto freedom.But I was mistaken in my calculations regarding him, as his historyof himself speedily showed me. 'I have been beaten about the world,'said he, 'ever since the year 1742, when my brother your father (andHeaven forgive him) cut my family estate from under my heels, byturning heretic, in order to marry that scold of a mother of yours.Well, let bygones be bygones. 'Tis probable that I should have runthrough the little property as he did in my place, and I should havehad to begin a year or two later the life I have been leading eversince I was compelled to leave Ireland. My lad, I have been in everyservice; and, between ourselves, owe money in every capital inEurope. I made a campaign or two with the Pandours under AustrianTrenck. I was captain in the Guard of His Holiness the Pope, I madethe campaign of Scotland with the Prince of Wales--a bad fellow, mydear, caring more for his mistress and his brandy-bottle than forthe crowns of the three kingdoms. I have served in Spain and inPiedmont; but I have been a rolling stone, my good fellow. Play--play has been my ruin; that and beauty' (here he gave a leer whichmade him, I must confess, look anything but handsome; besides, hisrouged cheeks were all beslobbered with the tears which he had shedon receiving me). 'The women have made a fool of me, my dearRedmond. I am a soft-hearted creature, and this minute, at sixty-two, have no more command of myself than when Peggy O'Dwyer made afool of me at sixteen.'''Faith sir,' says I, laughing, 'I think it runs in the family!' anddescribed to him, much to his amusement, my romantic passion for mycousin, Nora Brady. He resumed his narrative.'The cards now are my only livelihood. Sometimes I am in luck, andthen I lay out my money in these trinkets you see. It's property,look you, Redmond; and the only way I have found of keeping a littleabout me. When the luck goes against me, why, my dear, my diamondsgo to the pawnbrokers, and I wear paste. Friend Moses the goldsmithwill pay me a visit this very day; for the chances have been againstme all the week past, and I must raise money for the bank to-night.Do you understand the cards?'I replied that I could play as soldiers do, but had no great skill.'We will practise in the morning, my boy,' said he, 'and I'll putyou up to a thing or two worth knowing.'Of course I was glad to have such an opportunity of acquiringknowledge, and professed myself delighted to receive my uncle'sinstruction.The Chevalier's account of himself rather disagreeably affected me.All his show was on his back, as he said. His carriage, with thefine gilding, was a part of his stock in trade. He had a sort ofmission from the Austrian Court:--it was to discover whether acertain quantity of alloyed ducats which had been traced to Berlin,were from the King's treasury. But the real end of Monsieur deBalibari was play. There was a young attache of the English embassy,my Lord Deuceace, afterwards Viscount and Earl of Crabs in theEnglish peerage, who was playing high; and it was after hearing ofthe passion of this young English nobleman that my uncle, then atPrague, determined to visit Berlin and engage him. For there is asort of chivalry among the knights of the dice-box: the fame ofgreat players is known all over Europe. I have known the Chevalierde Casanova, for instance, to travel six hundred miles, from Paristo Turin, for the purpose of meeting Mr. Charles Fox, then only myLord Holland's dashing son, afterwards the greatest of Europeanorators and statesmen.It was agreed that I should keep my character of valet; that in thepresence of strangers I should not know a word of English; that Ishould keep a good look-out on the trumps when I was serving thechampagne and punch about; and, having a remarkably fine eyesightand a great natural aptitude, I was speedily able to give my dearuncle much assistance against his opponents at the green table. Someprudish persons may affect indignation at the frankness of theseconfessions, but Heaven pity them! Do you suppose that any man whohas lost or won a hundred thousand pounds at play will not take theadvantages which his neighbour enjoys? They are all the same. But itis only the clumsy fool who cheats; who resorts to the vulgarexpedients of cogged dice and cut cards. Such a man is sure to gowrong some time or other, and is not fit to play in the society ofgallant gentlemen; and my advice to people who see such a vulgarperson at his pranks is, of course, to back him while he plays, butnever--never to have anything to do with him. Play grandly,honourably. Be not, of course, cast down at losing; but above all,be not eager at winning, as mean souls are. And, indeed, with allone's skill and advantages, winning is often problematical; I haveseen a sheer ignoramus that knows no more of play than of Hebrew,blunder you out of five thousand pounds in a few turns of the cards.I have seen a gentleman and his confederate play against another andhis confederate. One never is secure in these cases: and when oneconsiders the time and labour spent, the genius, the anxiety, theoutlay of money required, the multiplicity of bad debts that onemeets with (for dishonourable rascals are to be found at the play-table, as everywhere else in the world), I say, for my part, theprofession is a bad one; and, indeed, have scarcely ever met a manwho, in the end, profited by it. I am writing now with theexperience of a man of the world. At the time I speak of I was alad, dazzled by the idea of wealth, and respecting, certainly toomuch, my uncle's superior age and station in life.There is no need to particularise here the little arrangements madebetween us; the playmen of the present day want no instruction, Itake it, and the public have little interest in the matter. Butsimplicity was our secret. Everything successful is simple. If, forinstance, I wiped the dust off a chair with my napkin, it was toshow that the enemy was strong in diamonds; if I pushed it, he hadace, king; if I said, 'Punch or wine, my Lord?' hearts was meant; if'Wine or punch?' clubs. If I blew my nose, it was to indicate thatthere was another confederate employed by the adversary; and then, Iwarrant you, some pretty trials of skill would take place. My LordDeuceace, although so young, had a very great skill and clevernesswith the cards in every way; and it was only from hearing FrankPunter, who came with him, yawn three times when the Chevalier hadthe ace of trumps, that I knew we were Greek to Greek, as it were.My assumed dulness was perfect; and I used to make Monsieur dePotzdorff laugh with it, when I carried my little reports to him atthe Garden-house outside the town where he gave me rendezvous. Thesereports, of course, were arranged between me and my unclebeforehand. I was instructed (and it is always far the best way) totell as much truth as my story would possibly bear. When, forinstance, he would ask me, 'What does the Chevalier do of amorning?''He goes to church regularly' (he was very religious), 'and afterhearing mass comes home to breakfast. Then he takes an airing in hischariot till dinner, which is served at noon. After dinner he writeshis letters, if he have any letters to write: but he has very littleto do in this way. His letters are to the Austrian envoy, with whomhe corresponds, but who does not acknowledge him; and being writtenin English, of course I look over his shoulder. He generally writesfor money. He says he wants it to bribe the secretaries of theTreasury, in order to find out really where the alloyed ducats comefrom; but, in fact, he wants it to play of evenings, when he makeshis party with Calsabigi, the lottery-contractor, the Russianattaches, two from the English embassy, my Lords Deuceace andPunter, who play a jeu d'enfer, and a few more. The same set meetevery night at supper: there are seldom any ladies; those who comeare chiefly French ladies, members of the corps de ballet. He winsoften, but not always. Lord Deuceace is a very fine player. TheChevalier Elliot, the English Minister, sometimes comes, on whichoccasion the secretaries do not play. Monsieur de Balibari dines atthe missions, but en petit comite, not on grand days of reception.Calsabigi, I think, is his confederate at play. He has won lately;but the week before last he pledged his solitaire for four hundredducats.''Do he and the English attaches talk together in their ownlanguage?''Yes; he and the envoy spoke yesterday for half-an-hour about thenew danseuse and the American troubles: chiefly about the newdanseuse.'It will be seen that the information I gave was very minute andaccurate, though not very important. But such as it was, it wascarried to the ears of that famous hero and warrior the Philosopherof Sans Souci; and there was not a stranger who entered the capitalbut his actions were similarly spied and related to Frederick theGreat.As long as the play was confined to the young men of the differentembassies, His Majesty did not care to prevent it; nay, heencouraged play at all the missions, knowing full well that a man indifficulties can be made to speak, and that a timely rouleau ofFrederics would often get him a secret worth many thousands. He gotsome papers from the French house in this way: and I have no doubtthat my Lord Deuceace would have supplied him with information at asimilar rate, had his chief not known the young nobleman's characterpretty well, and had (as is usually the case) the work of themission performed by a steady roturier, while the young brilliantbloods of the suite sported their embroidery at the balls, or shooktheir Mechlin ruffles over the green tables at faro. I have seenmany scores of these young sprigs since, of these and theirprincipals, and, mon Dieu! what fools they are! What dullards, whatfribbles, what addle-headed simple coxcombs! This is one of the liesof the world, this diplomacy; or how could we suppose, that were theprofession as difficult as the solemn red-box and tape-men wouldhave us believe, they would invariably choose for it little pink-faced boys from school, with no other claim than mamma's title, andable at most to judge of a curricle, a new dance, or a neat boot?When it became known, however, to the officers of the garrison thatthere was a faro-table in town, they were wild to be admitted to thesport; and, in spite of my entreaties to the contrary, my uncle wasnot averse to allow the young gentlemen their fling, and once ortwice cleared a handsome sum out of their purses. It was in vain Itold him that I must carry the news to my captain, before whom hiscomrades would not fail to talk, and who would thus know of theintrigue even without my information.'Tell him,' said my uncle.'They will send you away,' said I; 'then what is to become of me?''Make your mind easy,' said the latter, with a smile; 'you shall notbe left behind, I warrant you. Go take a last look at your barracks,make your mind easy; say a farewell to your friends in Berlin. Thedear souls, how they will weep when they hear you are out of thecountry; and, as sure as my name is Barry, out of it you shall go!''But how, sir?' said I.'Recollect Mr. Fakenham of Fakenham,' said he knowingly. ''Tis youyourself taught me how. Go get me one of my wigs. Open my despatch-box yonder, where the great secrets of the Austrian Chancery lie;put your hair back off you forehead; clap me on this patch and thesemoustaches, and now look in the glass!''The Chevalier de Balibari,' said I, bursting with laughter, andbegan walking the room in his manner with his stiff knee.The next day, when I went to make my report to Monsieur dePotzdorff, I told him of the young Prussian officers that had beenof late gambling; and he replied, as I expected, that the King haddetermined to send the Chevalier out of the country.'He is a stingy curmudgeon,' I replied; 'I have had but threeFrederics from him in two months, and I hope you will remember yourpromise to advance me!''Why, three Frederics were too much for the news you have pickedup,' said the Captain, sneering.'It is not my fault that there has been no more,' I replied. 'Whenis he to go, sir?''The day after to-morrow. You say he drives after breakfast andbefore dinner. When he comes out to his carriage, a couple ofgendarmes will mount the box, and the coachman will get his ordersto move on.''And his baggage, sir?' said I.'Oh! that will be sent after him. I have a fancy to look into thatred box which contains his papers, you say; and at noon, afterparade, shall be at the inn. You will not say a word to any onethere regarding the affair, and will wait for me at the Chevalier'srooms until my arrival. We must force that box. You are a clumsyhound, or you would have got the key long ago!'I begged the Captain to remember me, and so took my leave of him.The next night I placed a couple of pistols under the carriage seat;and I think the adventures of the following day are quite worthy ofthe honours of a separate chapter.