The Argosy — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

George Considine. 75 ‘“¢Never mind the shooting, old fellow; do what you know to be right.’ ‘I don’t know it to be right; and, ’pon my word, I will not be preached at, Jack. If you don’t care to go, I’ll take your excuses.’ ‘Fe rang the bell, and ordered the dog-cart; and seeing that he was bent on having his own way, I said no more, and I went with him too, after a tough battle with my confounded pride. Leave him to himself just then I could not, and call myself his friend. ‘‘T have since understood better the object St. Just had in view in asking us to Walford. It was said, on very good authority, I believe, that more than one large estate in the county belonged to him, and had he chosen to lay claim to them the nominal owners would have inevitably come to grief. Scarcely one of his friends was not over head and ears in debt to him, and Considine’s little place of fifteen hundred acres at Marston was perhaps more of a Naboth’s -vineyard to his neighbour than he was at all aware of. More- over, the fellow had such an extraordinary love of and desire for power that he would spare no thought or trouble to bring a young man under his influence whether he had money or not.. And not alone those of his own station. This extreme courtesy of manner, and this pleasant word and smile, that achieved to some extent his end with his inferiors, he never seemed to forget; and, though hard and stern in his dealings with his tenants, no man was more popular among the village people. His very grooms and stablemen watched for a look from him, and worshipped, if they feared him. ‘I was not altogether pleased to find, when he came in to dinner that night, that St. Just had sent for our things, and we were booked to spend a week there. He came up to me in the gun-room with a courteous word or two. ‘He had induced Considine to spend a few days with him, just for the pheasant shooting—would I give him the pleasure of my company? Considine’s friends were his—I must stay,’ and so forth. TI should like to have knocked him down, Charlie; but all I could do was to accept the invitation rather awkwardly, and resolve to get George away as soon as possible. He was standing by the window, and I went up to him. ““* You are going to stay, of course,’ he said to me, rather shortly. ‘IT answered him with a touch of coolness, and, seeing he was in no mood to be reasoned with, left him alone. I wish now I had not done so. ‘There were some wild things said and done that night, and I know Considine lost a lot of money—more than he could afford to do, by a long shot. I had to look on, fret and fume inwardly, and curse the winning smile and voice that were luring him on to destruction. | ‘“ My dear fellow, I tell you until you experienced it you could not understand how strong a fascination there was in St. Just’s manner GOnlGaoolks (GO