Yet, in spite of their universal
determination, midnight arrived without anything very decisive.
Another hour passed over, and then Tom Cogit kept touching the
baron's elbow, and whispering in a voice which everybody could
understand. All this meant that supper was ready. It was
brought into the room.
'Gaming has one advantage--it gives you an appetite; that is to
say, so long as you have a chance remaining. The duke had
thousands,--for at present his resources were unimpaired, and he
was exhausted by the constant attention and anxiety of five
hours. He passed over the delicacies, and went to the side-
table, and began cutting himself some cold roast beef. Tom Cogit
ran up, not to his Grace, but to the baron, to announce the
shocking fact, that the Duke of St James was enduring great
trouble; and then the baron asked his Grace to permit Mr Cogit to
serve him.
'Our hero devoured--we use the word advisedly, as fools say in
the House of Commons--he devoured the roast beef, and rejecting
the hermitage with disgust, asked for porter.
'They set to again, fresh as eagles. At six o'clock, accounts
were so complicated, that they stopped to make up their books.
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