The Lake of Wine

📖 The Scoop

"Whitelaw's" in those days ran, of a host of gambling clubs, the deepest. It was there all heavy potations and long stakes (at which many a self-martyr burned); but the first of these were put down and the second up with an accepted solemnity of decorum that was traditional to the place and the sign of its moral endowment. Fox, in his heavier moments, had been known to hazard in its glooms occasionally, and to lose, of course; and--equally of course--to find immediate balm for his scorched fingers in the inevitable "Herodotus." Selwyn, also, and Topham Beauclerc, and many another Georgium sidus, had played and hiccupped within its pregnant walls; but always with gravity and a weight of personal responsibility towards the foundation. "Brookes's" might have held in its time more showy revelry; "Almack's" have gambled in broad-brimmed straw hats, bedecked with flowers, and masks to hide the play of emotions. "Whitelaw's" would have none of these.



Bernard Edward Joseph Capes (30 August 1854 - 2 November 1918) was an English author.

Genre: Fiction / Fantasy / Historical (fancy, right?)