CAPTAIN ROOK AND MR. PIGEON.

BY WILLIAM THACKERY.

THE statistic mongers and dealers in geography have calculated to a nicety how many quartern loaves, bars of iron, pigs of lead, sacks of wool, Turks, Quakers, Methodists, Jews, Catholics, and Church of England men, are consumed or produced in the different countries of this wicked world: I should like to see an accurate table shewing the rogues and dupes of each nation; the calculation would form a pretty matter for a philosopher to speculate upon. The mind loves to repose, and broods benevolently over this expansive theme. What thieves are there at Paris, oh, heavens! and what a power of rogues with pigtails and mandarin buttons at Pekin! Crowds of swindlers are there at this very moment pursuing their trade at St. Petersburg: how many scoundrels are saying their prayers alongside of Don Carlos! how many scores are jobbing under the pretty nose of Queen Christine! what an inordinate number of rascals is there to be sure puffing tobacco and drinking flat small beer in all the capitals of Germany; or else, without a rag to their ebony backs, swigging quass out of calabashes, and, smeared over with palm oil, lolling at the doors of clay huts in the sunny city of Timbuctoo! It is not necessary to make any more topographical allusions, or, for illustrating the above position, to go through the whole Gazetteer; but he is a bad philosopher who has not all these things in mind, and does not in his speculations or his estimate of mankind duly consider and weigh them. And it is fine and consolatory to think, that thoughtful nature, which has provided sweet flowers for the humming bee; fair running streams for glittering fish; store of kids, deer, goats, and other fresh meat for roaring lions; for active cats, mice; for mice, cheese; and so on; establishing throughout the whole of her realm the great doctrine that where a demand is, there will be a supply (see the romances of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo, and the philosophical works of Miss Martineau): I say it is consolatory to think that, as nature has provided flies for the food of fishes, and flowers for bees, so she has created fools for rogues; and thus the scheme is consistent throughout. Yes, observation, with extensive view, will discover Captain Rooks all over the world, and

Q Q

Mr. Pigeons made for their benefit. Wherever shines the sun, you are sure to find Folly basking in it; and knavery is the shadow at Folly's heels.

It is not, however, necessary to go to Petersburg or Pekin for rogues (and in truth I don't know whether the Timbuctoo Captain Rooks prefer cribbage or billiards). "We are not birds," as the Irishman says, "to be in half-a-dozen places at once; so let us pretermit all considerations of rogues in other countries, examining only those who flourish under our very noses. I have travelled much, and seen many men and cities; and, in truth, I think that our country of England produces the best soldiers, sailors, razors, tailors, brewers, hatters, and rogues, of all. Especially, there is no cheat like an English cheat. Our society produces them in the greatest numbers as well as of the greatest excellence. We supply all Europe with them. I defy you to point out a great city of the continent where half-a-dozen of them are not to be found: proofs of our enterprise, and samples of our home manufacture. Try Rome, Cheltenham, Baden, Toeplitz, Madrid, or Czarkoeselo: I have been in every one of them, and give you my honour that the Englishman is the best rascal to be found in all; better than your eager Frenchman; your swaggering Irishman with a red velvet waistcoat and red whiskers; your grave Spaniard, with horrid goggle eyes and profuse diamond shirt-pins; your tallow-faced German baron with white moustache and double chin, fat, pudgy, dirty fingers, and great gold thumb-ring; better even than your nondescript Russian-swindler and spy as he is by loyalty and education-the most dangerous antagonist we have. Who has the best coat even at Vienna? who has the neatest britzska at Baden? who drinks the best champagne at Paris? Captain Rook, to be sure, of her Britannic majesty's service: -he has been of the service, that is to say, but often finds it convenient to sell out.

The life of a blackleg, which is the name contemptuously applied to Captain Rook in his own country, is such an easy, comfortable, careless, merry one, that I can't conceive why all the world do not turn Captain Rooks; unless, may be, there are some mysteries and difficulties in it which the vulgar know nothing of, and which only men of real genius can overcome. Call on Captain Rook in the day (in London, he lives about St. James's; abroad, he has the very best rooms in the very best hotels), and you will find him at one o'clock dressed in the very finest robe de chambre, before a breakfast table covered with the prettiest patties and delicacies possible; smoking, perhaps, one of the biggest Meerschaum pipes you ever

saw; reading, possibly, "The Morning Post," or a novel (he has only one volume in his whole room, and that from a circulating library); or having his hair dressed; or talking to a tailor about waistcoat patterns; or drinking soda water with a glass of sherry; all this he does every morning, and it does not seem very difficult, and lasts until three. At three, he goes to a horse-dealer's, and lounges there for half-an-hour; at four, he is to be seen in the window of his club; at five, he is cantering and curvetting in Hyde Park with one or two more (he does not know any ladies, but has many male acquaintances: some, stout old gentlemen riding cobs, who knew his family, and give him a surly grunt of recognition; some, very young lads, with pale dissolute faces, little moustaches, perhaps, or, at least, little tufts on their chin, who hail him eagerly as a man of fashion): at seven, he has a dinner at Long's, or at the Clarendon; and so to bed very likely at five in the morning, after a quiet game of whist, broiled bones, and punch.

Perhaps he dines early at a tavern in Covent Garden; after which, you will see him at the theatre in a private box (Captain Rook affects the Olympic a good deal). In the box, besides himself, you may remark a young man-very young,—one of the lads who spoke to him in the Park this morning, and a couple of ladies: one shabby, melancholy, raw-boned, with numberless small white ringlets, large hands and feet, and a faded light-blue silk gown; she has a large cap, trimmed with yellow, and all sorts of crumpled flowers and greasy blonde lace; she wears large gilt ear-rings, and sits back, and nobody speaks to her, and she to nobody, except to say, "Law, Maria, how well you do look to-night: there's a man opposite has been staring at you this three hours: I'm blest if it is n't him as we saw in the Park, dear!"

"I wish, Hanna, you'd 'old your tongue, and not bother me about the men. You don't believe Miss Ickman, Freddy, do you?" says Maria, smiling fondly on Freddy. Maria is sitting in front: she says she is twenty-three, though Miss Hickman knows very well she is thirty-one (Freddy is just of age). She wears a purplevelvet gown, three different gold bracelets on each arm, as many rings on each finger of each hand; to one is hooked a gold smelling bottle she has an enormous fan, a laced pocket handkerchief, a Cashmere shawl, which is continually falling off, and exposing very unnecessarily a pair of very white shoulders: she talks loud, always lets her playbill drop into the pit, and smells most pungently of Mr. Delcroix's shop. After this description it is not at all necessary to say who Maria is: Miss Hickman is her companion, and they live together in a very snug little house in May-Fair, which has just been

new-furnished à la Louis Quatorze by Freddy, as we are positively informed. It is even said, that the little carriage, with two little white ponies, which Maria drives herself in such a fascinating way through the Park, was purchased for her by Freddy too; aye, and that Captain Rook got it for him—a great bargain, of course.

Such is Captain Rook's life. Can anything be more easy? Suppose Maria says, "Come home, Rook, and heat a cold chicken with us, and a glass of hiced champagne;" and suppose he goes, and after chicken-just for fun-Maria proposes a little chickenhazard; she only plays for shillings, while Freddy, a little bolder, won't mind half-pound stakes himself. Is there any great harm in all this? Well, after half-an-hour, Maria grows tired, and Miss Hickman has been nodding asleep in the corner long ago; so off the two ladies set, candle in hand.

"D-n it, Fred," says Captain Rook, pouring out for that young gentleman his fifteenth glass of champagne, "what luck you are in, if you did but know how to back it!"

What more natural and even kind of Rook than to say this? Fred is evidently an inexperienced player; and every experienced player knows that there is nothing like backing your luck. Freddy does. Well; fortune is proverbially variable; and it is not at all surprising that Freddy, after having had so much luck at the commencement of the evening, should have the tables turned on him at some time or other.

Freddy loses.

It is deuced unlucky, to be sure, that he should have won all the little coups, and lost all the great ones; but there is a plan which the commonest play-man knows, an infallible means of retrieving yourself at play it is simply doubling your stake. Say, you lose a guinea: you bet two guineas, which if you win, you win a guinea and your original stake: if you lose, you have but to bet four guineas on the third stake, eight on the fourth, sixteen on the fifth, thirty-two on the sixth, and so on. It stands to reason that you cannot lose always; and the very first time you win, all your losings are made up to you. There is but one drawback to this infallible process: if you begin at a guinea, double every time you lose, and lose fifteen times, you will have lost exactly sixteen thousand three hundred and sixty-three guineas; a sum which probably exceeds the amount of your yearly income :-mine is considerably under that figure.

Freddy does not play this game, then, yet; but being a poorspirited creature, as we have seen he must be by being afraid to win, he is equally poor-spirited when he begins to lose; he is frightened