So give me now ten guineas, and I will be
gone; for I was told to be early."
Tom had no difficulty, once he had reached the Mall, in finding
Lord Claud's rooms; for everybody knew where they were situated,
and looked with some respect upon Tom for inquiring. He was
received at the door by a very fine lackey, and taken up a wide
staircase, so richly carpeted that the footfall could not be heard
upon it. Everywhere his eyes rested upon strange and costly
products of foreign lands, such as he had never dreamed of
heretofore. Later on he learned that Lord Claud had won this
sumptuous suite of rooms from a rich young nobleman at the gaming
table, and had stepped into its luxury and collected treasures with
never an effort on his part. It was the fashion of the day to stake
house and lands, wealth, and even honour, upon the cast of the dice
or the fall of the cards; but that Tom did not yet know.
He followed the servant into a large and lofty bedchamber, the like
of which he had never seen before. He could have spent an hour in
examining all the rich and curious things it contained; but a voice
hailed him from the bed, and there lay Lord Claud, in a nest of
snowy pillows, his golden head and fair complexion giving him an
almost girlish aspect, albeit the square set of the jaw and the
peculiarly penetrating glance of the dark-blue eyes robbed the face
of any charge of effeminacy.
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