CHAPTER XXXVIII.
DREAMS AND TROUBLES, AND A DARK LOOK-OUT.
So there was no feud in the club worth speaking of but those of which Dr.Sturk was the centre; and Toole remarked this night that Sturk looked very ill--and so, in truth, he did; and it was plain, too, that his mind was not in the game, for old Slowe, who used not to have a chance with him, beat him three times running, which incensed Sturk, as small things will a man who is in the slow fever of a secret trouble.

He threw down the three shillings he had lost with more force than was necessary, and muttering a curse, clapped on his hat and took up a newspaper at another table, with a rather flushed face.

He happened to light upon a dolorous appeal to those 'whom Providence had blessed with riches,' on behalf of a gentleman 'who had once held a commission under his Majesty, and was now on a sudden by some unexpected turns of fortune, reduced, with his unhappy wife and five small children, to want of bread, and implored of his prosperous fellow-citizens that charitable relief which, till a few months since, it was his custom and pleasure to dispense to others.' And this stung him with a secret pang of insecurity and horror.

Trifles affected him a good deal now.

So he pitched down the newspaper and walked across to his own house, with his hands in his pockets, and thought again of Dangerfield, and who the deuce he could be, or whether he had really ever, anywhere--in the body or in the spirit--encountered him, as he used to feel with a boding vagueness he had done.