Diana Tempest, Volume I (of 3)

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John." The action failed; no one except Colonel Tempest had ever been sanguine that it would succeed. Colonel Tempest was unable to support an assertion of which few did not recognize the probable truth. No proof of John's suspected illegitimacy was forthcoming. His

l Tempest flinging himself about his little room, into which the latter had ju

the dinners of men far above him in the social scale, who probably for very good reasons tolerated his presence, and for even better reviled him behind his back. He had a certain shrewdness and knowledge of the seamy side of human nature which stood him in good stead. He was a noted billiard player-a little too noted, perhaps. His short, thick ringed hands did not mind much what they fastened on. He was not troubled by conscientious scruples. The charm of Dandy Swayne's character was that he stuck at nothing. He would go down any sewer provided there was money in it, and money there always was somewhere in every

actresses, and littered with cheap expensive furniture, and plush hangings redolent of smoke a

to -- you'd sit down and not rush up and down like that. It's not a b

bious character, that to present his conversation to the reader without the personal peculiarities of his choice of language is to do him an injustice which, however unavoidable, is mu

d, whose flushed face and shaking hand showed that he had had enough a

I suppose," suggested Mr. Sw

e put those words in. He knew I should contest the succession, and he hated me so that he perjured himself to keep me out of my own, and stuck to it even on hi

d the sentiment in a varied but

e, down to his finger-nails. You can't look at him among the pictures in the gallery and not see he is bone of their bone and flesh of th

mind. He watched the smoke of his cigar curl upwar

il, I suppose?" h

hildren, everything was to come to me and my heirs

e did, if it was entailed all along on his son."

disowned his wife's child, ev

at. Then this little chap, this John, he's all that stands between

expression of dissipated boot-buttons, were beg

g as we live, and shall see him chucking our money right and left!" and Colonel Tempest, who was by this time hardly responsib

less? There's a sight of little kids in the world; some wanted, some not. I've known cases, Colonel"-here he fixed his eyes on the ceiling-"cases with parents, maybe

nt," said Colonel Tempest passi

can be, or leaning out of railway carriages in tunnels. Lor! you never know what they won't be up to, little rascals. They're made of mischief. Forty thousand a year, is it, he is keeping you out of, and yours by right? Well, I don't say anything about that; but all I say is, I have friends I can find that are open to a bet. What's the harm of betting a thousand pounds to one sovereign that you never come into the property? It ain't likely, as you say. What's the harm of a bet, provided you don't mind risking your money? Let's say, just for the sake of-

oodshot, but Mr. Swayne had all his wits about him; he never became intox

pest in a hoarse whisper. "He

as to blame

table, on which were pens, ink, and paper. Som