Lucrative
Gambling

This singular man was an inveterate gambling man, and for some time very lucky at gambling; but the reaction came at last; the stakes were too high, and the purses of his companions too long for him to stand against any continued run of bad luck; indeed, the play at Wattier's, which was very deep, eventually ruined the club, as well as Brummell and several other members of it; a certain baronet now living, according to Captain Jesse, is asserted to have lost ten thousand pounds there at Ecarte at one sitting.[131]

[131] Life of Beau Brummell.
The season of 1814 saw Brummell a winner, and a loser likewise--and this time he lost not only his winnings, but `an unfortunate ten thousand pounds,' which, when relating the circumstance to a friend many years afterwards, he said was all that remained at his banker's. One night--the fifth of a most relentless run of ill-luck--his friend Pemberton Mills heard him exclaim that he had lost every shilling, and only wished some one would bind him never to play again:--`I will,' said Mills; and taking out a ten-pound note he offered it to Brummell on condition that he should forfeit a thousand if he played at White's within a month from that evening. The Beau took it, and for a few days discontinued coming to the club; but about a fortnight after Mills, happening to go in, saw him hard at work. Of course the thousand pounds was forfeited; but his friend, instead of claiming it, merely went up to him and, touching him gently on the shoulder, said--`Well, Brummell, you may at least give me back the ten pounds you had the other night.'

Among the members who indulged in high play at Brookes' Club was Alderman Combe, the brewer, who is said to have made as much money in this way as he did by brewing. One evening whilst he filled the office of Lord Mayor, he was busy at a full Hazard table at Brookes', where the wit and the dice-box circulated together with great glee, and where Beau Brummell was one of the party. `Come, Mash-tub,' said Brummell, who was the _caster_, `what do you _set?_' `Twenty-five guineas,' answered the Alderman. `Well, then,' returned the Beau, `have at the mare's pony' (a gambling term for 25 guineas). He continued to throw until he drove home the brewer's twelve ponies running; and then getting up, and making him a low bow, whilst pocketing the cash, he said--`Thank you, Alderman; for the future I shall never drink any porter but yours.' `I wish, sir,' replied the brewer, `that every other blackguard in London would tell me the same.'[132]

[132] Jesse, _ubi supra_.
The following occurrence must have caused a `sensation' to poor Brummell. Among the members of Wattier's Club was Bligh, a notorious madman, of whom Mr Raikes relates:--`One evening at the Macao table, when the play was very deep, Brummell, having lost a considerable stake, affected, in his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out--"Waiter, bring me a flat candlestick and a pistol." Upon which Bligh, who was sitting opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat pocket, which he placed on the table, and said, "Mr Brummell, if you are really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy to offer you the means without troubling the waiter." The effect upon those present may easily be imagined, at finding themselves in the company of a known madman who had loaded weapons about him.'

Brummell was at last completely beggared, though for some time he continued to hold on by the help of funds raised on the mutual security of himself and his friends, some of whom were not in a much more flourishing condition than himself; their names, however, and still more, their expectations, lent a charm to their bills, in the eyes of the usurers, and money was procured, of course at ruinous interest. It is said that some unpleasant circumstances, connected with the division of one of these loans, occasioned the Beau's expatriation, and that a personal altercation took place between Brummell and a certain Mr M--, when that gentleman accused him of taking the lion's share.

He died in utter poverty, and an idiot, at Caen, in the year 1840, aged 62 years. Brummell had a very odd way of accounting for the sad change which took place in his affairs. He said that up to a particular period of his life everything prospered with him, and that he attributed good luck to the possession of a certain silver sixpence with a hole in it, which somebody had given him years before, with an injunction to take good care of it, as everything would go well with him so long as he did, and the reverse if he happened to lose it. The promised prosperity attended him for many years, whilst he held the sixpence fast; but having at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune ensued, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to expatriate himself. `On my asking him,' says the narrator, `why he did not advertise and offer a reward for the lost treasure; he said, "I did, and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain the promised reward, but mine was not amongst them!" And you never afterwards,' said I, `ascertained what became of it? "Oh yes," he replied, "no doubt that rascal Rothschild, or some of his set, got hold of it." ' Whatever poor Brummell's supernatural tendencies may have generally been, he had unquestionably a superstitious veneration for his lost sixpence.

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