CHAPTER XVIII

JOHNNY O’DICEY

IF all the victims of misplaced confidence were polled, we take it the great majority of sufferers would prove to have been the dupes of plausible people. We all deprecate plausible people—advise others to be cautious of plausible people, and yet somehow or other are easily caught by plausible people.

The fact is, we don’t know they are plausible until they have deceived us. Their extra goodness passes for honesty—suspicious, perhaps, in any one else, but doubtless sincere in them. In fact, we think they are the exception to the general rule, which teaches us to beware of those who profess to be better than their neighbours. So we end in being deceived.

Any one, however,—any one at least on the sunny-side of thirty—might be fairly excused for being duped by Johnny O’Dicey. The name Johnny inspires confidence. Everybody has a good friend Johnny, and our friend Johnny (if he will allow us to call him so), has such an airy, careless, happy-go-lucky sort of manner, that the inexperienced would think he was the noblest-hearted fellow under the sun—a victim instead of a shark. Always gay, always well dressed, always swinging into coffee-rooms at the critical time, calling for “devils,” or hock-and-soda-water, scattering silver without rhyme or reason. No one would suppose that such a man was merely feathering about to catch the scent of some one with money—throwing away a sprat to catch a whale, as it were.

The same at the gaming-table—Johnny dashes down handfuls of sovereigns, apparently at random, leaving the Croupiers to rake them into place—then, if he wins, he goes in for doublets, or, if he loses, comes out with more. He walks away a loser quite as gaily as if he had been a winner.

“Oh, hang it, what’s the use of money if it isn’t to enjoy oneself!” cries he, twirling his Louis Nap-like moustache. Of course he returns the next morning and has his money all back, with a liberal per-centage on the losses of the dupes he has brought. But that is going too deeply into the secrets of the prison-house. We have only to do with Mr. O’Dicey in his public capacity of man of fashion and youth lightener of cash. To this end he devotes his whole energies, and makes everything he can contribute. He does everything for effect. His dinners are always the costliest and best. “Let’s have everything that’s expensive,” seems to be the order. The landlords are more obsequious, and the waiters bow lower to him than to anybody else. A stranger would say that Johnny was a man of abundant, over-abundant means, who just played for pleasure. Altogether, he is quite the model of a dashing, off-hand, open-hearted knave, so different to the lynx-eyed Clinker, who goes crawling along to Tattersall’s, looking as if he dursn’t trust his own shadow, or little Ginger Curlew, who comes sneaking into a room as if he had stolen a pat of butter, and had it in his pocket. For rigging the plucking arrangements of private play, Mr. O’Dicey is also unrivalled. No man can confront or confederate with a cooler, “I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you, face”—can produce a pack of cards more innocently or more opportunely, or deprecate play more earnestly than he does. He hates the sight of cards, he will say, frowning, and rubbing his side with his elbows, just as if he were going to do violence to his feelings to oblige the company. But once quietly down, with a sufficient inducement in view, and woe betide the innocent who thinks to rise a winner with him. Johnny knows when to turn the tide of fortune against him, and always makes such an indenture as saves the trouble of coming again. He will lay out of his harvest for months, but will always have it at last, and generally a rich one. His impudence too is truly delightful. He won’t be cut, let it be ever so. “Oh, hang it, what’s the use of shieing!” he will say to an avoiding victim, running his arm through his,—“what’s the use of shieing! Pluck up, and let’s have another turn, and see if luck won’t serve you!” So, even though said victim won’t have another turn, he can’t say that Johnny didn’t offer him one.

By such a man therefore as Mr. O’Dicey, it is no great reflection to be “done,” and small blame will attach to our hero No. 1, for having been picked up by him at the Angel at Robberfield Races, at the outset of his sporting career. Johnny, who has the best of information, knows who is in possession, who in reversion, who in remainder, and who in expectancy, had gone down express to make Jasper’s acquaintance, and dropped in upon him at an Englishman’s “secure hour” (full of cold beef and pickles), and after ringing both coffee-room bells, and storming the waiter, and denouncing the chamber-maid, subsided upon Jasper, by begging the loan of Bell’s Life, which lay beside him, for one moment. This being readily accorded, Johnny hastily conned the advertising columns, and then returned it with a profusion of gratitude, rarely met with in a coffee-room, where grumpiness and suspicion is generally the order of the day. Johnny then again rang the bell furiously, asked if Lord Broadmeadows had come, how long it would take to go to Spankerley Park, with four horses, whether they had any Whitstable oysters, Dunstable larks, or Cambridge brawn, in the house; and finally ordered in anchovy toast, with hock and seltzer water. When the toast came, he declared it was nothing but sprats soaked in brick dust, and ordered it away. The hock he threw into the grate, declaring it was vinegar. He then abused the household collectively and individually, and declared the landlord ought to be ostracised. The steam of disapprobation being thus blown off, he then addressed himself complacently to our friend on a few indifferent topics, as if he hadn’t the slightest idea who he was, and presently swung out of the room.

Such an epicure, so elaborately got up, for Johnny sported a bran new “Forester”-shaped Lincoln and Bennett, and was delicately toned down in brown and velvet, to harmonise with the colour of his whiskers and hair, could not but excite the admiration of a country-bred youth, like our Jasper, who felt flattered by the notice of such a man, and was sorry he had not stayed a little longer. And when he met him the next morning in High Street he gladly returned Johnny’s familiar nod, and was presently pleased to find his arm through his on his way to the News-room. A few more well-arranged casual interviews, and an acquaintance was established. How are you, Goldspink? How are you, O’Dicey? and so on.

Hitherto Jasper’s turf, or rather money-making inclinations, had been fostered and encouraged by the Ostler’s son, at the Bear and Ragged Staff Inn of his native town, who by one of those turf freaks of fortune, that most people have witnessed, had suddenly risen from rags and ignorance, into broad cloth and impudence, to say nothing of rings, and chains, and other the paraphernalia of elegance.

To oust such a genius as this required little effort on the part of our friend, who indeed rather sneered him out of countenance than condescended to a regular remonstrance, and at the time of our story Johnny O’Dicey was completely installed in the direction of Jasper’s sporting, or rather gambling propensities. The great spread of blackleg-ism making it impossible to buy all backbiters off, Johnny adopted the anti-turf, anti-betting tone, advising Jasper to be wary, cautioning him who to bet with, always impressing upon his mind the sound doctrine, that it is easier to win than to get paid, and rather acting the part of a guardian than otherwise. Johnny did not show much with Jasper in public, preferring to drop upon him in a railway train, or to spend a quiet evening with him in an inn. Railways have made racing wonderfully accessible, and contributed not a little to the gambling—miscalled sporting—propensities of the day. There are fifty “legs” now for one that there was five-and twenty years ago. So Johnny met Jasper at Exeter, and Manchester, and Malton, and elsewhere, always friendly and admonitory, but never showing the slightest inclination to have any pecuniary transactions with him himself. Jasper’s hour was not yet come! But it was approaching.