This was a coup d'etat on my part, for I knew at once there were so many
parties to benefit by the bet, terminate which way it might, there could
be no possibility of evading it. My ruse succeeded, and poor Fitzgerald,
fairly badgered into a wager, the terms of which he could not in the
least comprehend, was obliged to sign the conditions inserted in the
adjutant's note-book--his greatest hope in so doing being in the quantity
of wine he had seen me drink during the evening. As for myself, the bet
was no sooner made than I began to think upon the very little chance I
had of winning it; for even supposing my success perfect in the
department allotted to me, it might with great reason be doubted what
peculiar benefit I myself derived as a counterbalance to the fee of the
doctor. For this, my only trust lay in the justice of a decision which I
conjectured would lean more towards the goodness of a practical joke than
the equity of the transaction. The party at mess soon after separated,
and I wished my friend good night for the last time before meeting him as
a bride-groom.

I arranged every thing in order for my start. My pistol-case I placed
conspicuously before me, to avoid being forgotten in the haste of
departure; and, having ordered my servant to sit up all night in the
guard-room until he heard the carriage at the barrack-gate, threw myself
on my bed, but not to sleep. The adventure I was about to engage in
suggested to my mind a thousand associations, into which many of the
scenes I have already narrated entered. I thought how frequently I had
myself been on the verge of that state which Curzon was about to try, and
how it always happened that when nearest to success, failure had
intervened. From my very school-boy days my love adventures had the same
unfortunate abruptness in their issue; and there seemed to be something
very like a fatality in the invariable unsuccess of my efforts at