To him was talking in a thick growling bass a man arrayed in a costume hardly befitting a ball-room, unless indeed he wore it as a fancy dress.

But his evil face, dark, dirty, and inflamed by deep potations, the line of an old scar extending from the corner of his mouth almost to his ear showing white against the purple of his bloated cheek forbade this supposition.
Captain Jeremy Rofflash in point of fact was very drunk.

He had for the last three or four hours been industriously engaged in getting rid of some of the guineas of the old gentleman from Bath, in a boozing ken in Whitefriars.

Seasoned toper as he was he could carry his liquor without it interfering with his head.

About the effect on his legs he was not quite so sure and at that moment his body was swaying ominously, but thanks to his clutching a high backed chair he maintained his equilibrium fairly well.
"Idiot," snarled the young gentleman whose temper inebriation had soured, "why the devil didn't you come here earlier?
The coup might have been brought off to-night.