But the tables made
such things easy; half the Baden world lived by the tables. Roderick
tried them and found that at first they smoothed his path delightfully.
This simplification of matters, however, was only momentary, for he soon
perceived that to seem to have money, and to have it in fact, exposed
a good-looking young man to peculiar liabilities. At this point of his
friend's narrative, Rowland was reminded of Madame de Cruchecassee in
The Newcomes, and though he had listened in tranquil silence to the rest
of it, he found it hard not to say that all this had been, under
the circumstances, a very bad business. Roderick admitted it with
bitterness, and then told how much--measured simply financially--it had
cost him. His luck had changed; the tables had ceased to back him, and
he had found himself up to his knees in debt. Every penny had gone
of the solid sum which had seemed a large equivalent of those shining
statues in Rome. He had been an ass, but it was not irreparable; he
could make another statue in a couple of months.
Rowland frowned. "For heaven's sake," he said, "don't play such
dangerous games with your facility.
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