Chapter: In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance

Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did not fail to have the
most favourable effect upon Mr. Sedley's mind, and the very next
morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel was
the pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their tour.
Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult of comprehension,
and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when he
found, by the knowing air of the civilian and the offhand manner in
which the latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members of
the family, that Jos had been up already in the morning, consulting his
travelling Peerage.  Yes, he had seen the Right Honourable the Earl of
Bagwig, his lordship's father; he was sure he had, he had met him
at--at the Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist called
on the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received him with such a
salute and honours as were seldom accorded to the little Envoy.  He
winked at Kirsch on his Excellency's arrival, and that emissary,
instructed before-hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of
cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and
of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest should
partake.

Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admiring the
bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of complexion bore
daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to accept any invitation
to stay in Mr. Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions
to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about that
beautiful boy who had been with her; and complimented the astonished
little woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in the
house; and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war and the
exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the command of the
Hereditary Prince, now Duke of Pumpernickel.

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry, and
it was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he himself
cast friendly eyes was in love with him.  He left Emmy under the
persuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home
to his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her.  She was not
fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering, his scented
cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots.  She did not
understand one-half the compliments which he paid; she had never, in
her small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as yet,
and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than pleasant; and
if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him.  Jos, on the
contrary, was delighted. "How very affable his Lordship is," he said;
"How very kind of his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!
Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de Schlusselback
directly; the Major and I will have the greatest pleasure in paying our
respects at Court as soon as possible.  Put out my uniform,
Kirsch--both our uniforms.  It is a mark of politeness which every
English gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits to pay
his respects to the sovereigns of those countries as to the
representatives of his own."

When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body Physician to
H.S.H.  the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel
mineral springs and the Doctor's particular treatment would infallibly
restore the Bengalee to youth and slimness.  "Dere came here last
year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral, tvice so pic
as you, sir.  I sent him back qvite tin after tree months, and he
danced vid Baroness Glauber at the end of two."

Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the Court, and the
Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to spend the autumn in
these delightful quarters.  And punctual to his word, on the next day
the Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor Aurelius
XVII, being conducted to their audience with that sovereign by the
Count de Schlusselback, Marshal of the Court.

They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and their intention
of staying in the town being announced, the politest ladies of the
whole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these,
however poor they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos's
delight was beyond expression.  He wrote off to Chutney at the Club to
say that the Service was highly appreciated in Germany, that he was
going to show his friend, the Count de Schlusselback, how to stick a
pig in the Indian fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and
Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil.

Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as mourning is not
admitted in Court on certain days, she appeared in a pink crape dress
with a diamond ornament in the corsage, presented to her by her
brother, and she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke and
Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had scarcely ever
seen her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not look
five-and-twenty) all admired her excessively.

In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at a Court ball,
in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countess
of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good
quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.

Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley through which
sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have not the map at
hand to say exactly at what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump.
In some places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in
others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last Transparency
but three, the great and renowned Victor Aurelius XIV built a
magnificent bridge, on which his own statue rises, surrounded by
water-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot
on the neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and ran a
Janissary through the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski--but,
quite undisturbed by the agonies of that prostrate Mahometan, who
writhes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles
blandly and points with his truncheon in the direction of the Aurelius
Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would have been the
wonder of his age had the great-souled Prince but had funds to
complete it.  But the completion of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest
German folks call it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and
its park and garden are now in rather a faded condition, and not more
than ten times big enough to accommodate the Court of the reigning
Sovereign.

The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles, and amidst
the terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical waterworks
still, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten
one with their enormous aquatic insurrections.  There is the
Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden Tritons are
made not only to spout water, but to play the most dreadful groans out
of their lead conchs--there is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract,
which the people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression, when
they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the Chamber, or to the
fetes with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdays
and marriage-days of its princely governors.

Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches for nearly ten
mile--from Bolkum, which lies on its western frontier bidding defiance
to Prussia, from Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and
where his dominions are separated by the Pump River from those of the
neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from all the little villages, which
besides these three great cities, dot over the happy principality--from
the farms and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in red
petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-cornered hats and
pipes in their mouths, who flock to the Residenz and share in the
pleasures of the fair and the festivities there.  Then the theatre is
open for nothing, then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is
lucky that there is company to behold them, for one would be afraid to
see them alone)--then there come mountebanks and riding troops (the way
in which his Transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is
well known, and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was
called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people are
permitted to march through room after room of the Grand Ducal palace
and admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at
the doors of all the innumerable chambers.  There is one Pavilion at
Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had arranged--a great Prince but
too fond of pleasure--and which I am told is a perfect wonder of
licentious elegance. It is painted with the story of Bacchus and
Ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of a
windlass, so that the company was served without any intervention of
domestics.  But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow,
a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the
Duchy during her son's glorious minority, and after the death of her
husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.

The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter of
Germany.  It languished a little when the present Duke in his youth
insisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said one
day, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a
rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel Master, who was
conducting, and led too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophia
wrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to witness.
But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess only
gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction who visit her
kind little Court.

It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. When there are
balls, though there may be four hundred people at supper, there is a
servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon every four, and every one is
served on silver.  There are festivals and entertainments going
continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and equerries, and
the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honour, just
like any other and more potent potentates.

The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered by a Chamber
that might or might not be elected.  I never certainly could hear of
its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel.  The Prime Minister had
lodgings in a second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied the
comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey.  The army consisted of
a magnificent band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quite
pleasant to see the worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with
rouge on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with ophicleides
and trombones--to see them again, I say, at night, after one had
listened to them all the morning in the Aurelius Platz, where they
performed opposite the cafe where we breakfasted.  Besides the band,
there was a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a few
men.  Besides the regular sentries, three or four men, habited as
hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I never saw them on
horseback, and au fait, what was the use of cavalry in a time of
profound peace?--and whither the deuce should the hussars ride?

Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for as for the bourgeois
we could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM--visited his
neighbour.  H. E. Madame de Burst received once a week, H. E. Madame de
Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice a week, the Court
graciously received once, so that a man's life might in fact be a
perfect round of pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. Politics ran very
high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter.  There was the
Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by our
envoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau.
Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame Strumpff,
who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had three more notes
in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, for
our Minister to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted
by the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions. The
Lederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her voice
(what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt that the
Strumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too
stout; when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula, for
instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her hand, and had to go
out of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was all she
could do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend and
creak again under her weight--but how she poured out the finale of the
opera!  and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into Elvino's
arms--almost fit to smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung--but a
truce to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were the two
flags of the French and the English party at Pumpernickel, and the
society was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the Horse, the
Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor; whereas of the French
party were the Foreign Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had
served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his wife, who was glad
enough to get the fashions from Paris, and always had them and her caps
by M. de Macabau's courier.  The Secretary of his Chancery was little
Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who made
caricatures of Tapeworm in all the albums of the place.

Their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the Pariser
Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these gentlemen
were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each other with
epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of
wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and never
showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces.  Neither Tapeworm nor
Macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government without a most
savage series of attacks upon his rival.  For instance, on our side we
would write, "The interests of Great Britain in this place, and
throughout the whole of Germany, are perilled by the continuance in
office of the present French envoy; this man is of a character so
infamous that he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime,
to attain his ends.  He poisons the mind of the Court against the
English minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in the most
odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily backed by a minister whose
ignorance and necessities are as notorious as his influence is fatal."
On their side they would say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his system of
stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest
nation in the world.  Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of Her
Royal Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he
insulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate that
H.R.H.  the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne of
the lilies.  His gold is prodigated in every direction which his stupid
menaces fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won over
creatures of the Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be
quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe content until this
poisonous viper be crushed under heel":  and so on.  When one side or
the other had written any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was
sure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that Emmy
took a night and received company with great propriety and modesty.
She had a French master, who complimented her upon the purity of her
accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had learned long
ago and grounded herself subsequently in the grammar so as to be able
to teach it to George; and Madam Strumpff came to give her lessons in
singing, which she performed so well and with such a true voice that
the Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the Prime
Minister, were always open to hear the lesson. Some of the German
ladies, who are very sentimental and simple in their tastes, fell in
love with her and began to call her du at once.  These are trivial
details, but they relate to happy times.  The Major made himself
George's tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and they had a
German master and rode out of evenings by the side of Emmy's
carriage--she was always too timid, and made a dreadful outcry at the
slightest disturbance on horse-back.  So she drove about with one of
her dear German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of the
barouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a very
gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness and
Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her
fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's sister was
the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might
have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms on
his carriage and forks; when--when events occurred, and those grand
fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickel
with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took
place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been
known in the little German place since the days of the prodigal Victor
XIV.  All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were
invited to the feast.  Beds rose to half a crown per night in
Pumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of honour
for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived from all
quarters.  The Princess was married by proxy, at her father's
residence, by the Count de Schlusselback.  Snuff-boxes were given away
in profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold and
afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of Saint
Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court, while
hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of
Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours.  The French envoy got both.
"He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse," Tapeworm said,
who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take any
decorations:  "Let him have the cordons; but with whom is the victory?"
The fact is, it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party
having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with a
Princess of the House of Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter
of course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands and
triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride.
The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while
that in the Artillery Place frothed with beer.  The great waters
played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens for the happy
peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off
watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at
the top.  Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole
to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of
a fall of water.  But it was for the glory's sake merely.  The boy gave
the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood at
the foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in their
illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented the
young Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous
likeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and
I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the Bath
which he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of course.
Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the Town Hall and
the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room for
trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the
festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems or
Aix-la-Chapelle.  The officers or inhabitants of the town were not
allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies were
admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets
were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the grand
festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his
uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room at
Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he was
not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment
and hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters were
at work.  Women were playing; they were masked, some of them; this
license was allowed in these wild times of carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it had
been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes
twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a
card and a pin and a couple of florins before her.  As the croupier
called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with great
care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours after
the red or black had come up a certain number of times.  It was strange
to look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the last
two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as he cried
out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and number.  She gave
a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of
her gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat
thrumming it for a while.  Then she looked round her and saw Georgy's
honest face staring at the scene.  The little scamp!  What business had
he to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shining
eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"

"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his accent,
of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight foreign
tone.  "You have nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"

"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again.  Mr. Kirsch was at work for
his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.

"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number."
And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the
only coin there, and she put it into George's hand.  The boy laughed
and did as he was bid.

The number came up sure enough.  There is a power that arranges that,
they say, for beginners.

"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you. What
is your name?"

"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his own pockets
for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the Major, in his
uniform, and Jos, en Marquis, from the Court ball, made their
appearance.  Other people, finding the entertainment stupid and
preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball
earlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and found
the boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him and, taking
him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place of
temptation.  Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we
have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring Mr. George
to such a place.

"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by play
and wine.  "Il faut s'amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service de
Monsieur."

Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue with the man,
but contented himself with drawing away George and asking Jos if he
would come away.  He was standing close by the lady in the mask, who
was playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much interested
at the game.

"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with George and me?"

"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos said; and for the
same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved before
the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and
walked home with Georgy.

"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out and on their way
home.

The boy said "No."

"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will."

"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in a very eloquent
and impressive manner, the Major showed him why he shouldn't, and would
have enforced his precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, had
he liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's memory.
When he had housed him, he went to bed and saw his light, in the little
room outside of Amelia's, presently disappear.  Amelia's followed half
an hour afterwards.  I don't know what made the Major note it so
accurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no gambler,
but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now and then, and
he had some Napoleons chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court
waistcoat.  He put down one over the fair shoulder of the little
gambler before him, and they won.  She made a little movement to make
room for him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a
vacant chair there.

"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign accent,
quite different from that frank and perfectly English "Thank you," with
which she had saluted Georgy's coup in her favour.  The portly
gentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him, sat
down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless my soul. I'm very
fortunate; I'm sure to give you good fortune," and other words of
compliment and confusion. "Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.

"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air, flinging down a
gold piece.

"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly.  But Jos looking
frightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, "You do not
play to win.  No more do I. I play to forget, but I cannot.  I cannot
forget old times, monsieur.  Your little nephew is the image of his
father; and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are. Everybody
changes, everybody forgets; nobody has any heart."

"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.

"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little woman in a sad voice,
and undoing her mask, she looked at him.  "You have forgotten me."

"Good heavens!  Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.

"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followed
the game still, all the time she was looking at him.

"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued.  "Ask for Madame de
Raudon.  I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and how
happy!  So do you! Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."
And she put her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chance
movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with a
pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. "Come
away," she said.  "Come with me a little--we are old friends, are we
not, dear Mr. Sedley?"

And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed his
master out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking out
and the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible.

 Immediately Jos starts getting himself into the highest ranks of the little town's society. The British ambassador to the town, Lord Tapeworm, makes friends with everyone. He recommends a doctor whose miracle diet will make Jos skinny , flirts with Amelia , and gets them all invited to dinner at court with the local duke and duchess. When Amelia is all dressed up for going to court, her beauty knocks Dobbin's socks off. Pumpernickel is a lovely little place, with cute architecture, beautiful gardens, great theater, and a small but very fancy court. All the nobles and aristocrats that find themselves there together become friends because society is less formal abroad. The politics of the place revolve around which soprano is better at the opera and the blood feud between Tapeworm and his French counterpart. Everyone has a great time, and even Amelia finally finds some people to be friends with. Soon a royal wedding is going to be celebrated, so a big festival is set up. There's lots of food, of course, and games for the peasants. One of these games is climbing up a pole to get a prize at the top. George Jr. gets one of the prizes and gives it away to a peasant. The other fun thing is a gambling room that's set up for just one week. George Jr. goes there with Jos's valet and sees that there are women gambling there, not just men. Because this is kind of taboo, the women are allowed to wear masks. George Jr. sees one masked woman playing roulette and constantly losing until her last two coins are gone. She turns around and looks at George Jr. for a little while, then asks him in French whether he'd like to play. She gives him a gold coin from her purse and tells him to put it on any number. He does and immediately wins - beginner's luck. She thanks him and he tells her that his name is Osborne. He is about to talk to her more when Dobbin grabs him by the shoulder and drags him out of there. Who is the mystery woman, you're all wondering? OK, probably not. It's not really that much of a mystery. In any case, Dobbin yells at Jos and his valet for bringing George Jr. to the gambling room. But they are both pretty drunk and not worth arguing with, so Dobbin just takes George Jr. home and gives him a stern lecture about never ever gambling. Jos meanwhile comes to table where the woman is and sits down next to her. She suddenly tells him that his nephew is the spitting image of his father and that she has never forgotten him and their earlier times together. Jos kind of flips out and demands to know who she is. And it's...Becky. Of course. Becky tries one last bet and even cheats to move her piece from red to black, but loses again when red comes up. Then she tells Jos to find her at her hotel.

