. "You lost three thousand four hundred
pounds at one sitting to Lord Percival--at cards!"

"Yes, sir."

"In Lord Nidderdale's house?"

"Yes, sir. Nidderdale wasn't playing. It wasn't his fault."

"Who were playing?"

"Percival, and Dolly Longstaff, and Jack Hindes,--and I. Popplecourt
was playing at first."

"Lord Popplecourt!"

"Yes, sir. But he went away when he began to lose."

"Three thousand four hundred pounds! How old are you?"

"I am just twenty-one."

"You are beginning the world well, Gerald! What is the engagement
which Silverbridge has made with Lord Percival?"

"To pay him the money at the end of next month."

"What had Silverbridge to do with it?"

"Nothing, sir. I wrote to Silverbridge because I didn't know what to
do. I knew he would stand to me."

"Who is to stand to either of you if you go on thus I do not know."
To this Gerald of course made no reply, but an idea came across his
mind that he knew who would stand both to himself and his brother.
"How did Silverbridge mean to get the money?"

"He said he would ask you. But I thought that I ought to tell you."

"Is that all?"

"All what, sir?"

"Are there other debts?" To this Gerald made no reply. "Other
gambling debts."

"No, sir;--not a shilling of that kind. I have never played before."

"Does it ever occur to you that going on at that rate you may very
soon lose all the fortune that will ever come to you? You were not
yet of age and you lost three thousand four hundred pounds at cards
to a man whom you probably knew to be a professed gambler!" The Duke
seemed to wait for a reply, but poor Gerald had not a word to say.
"Can you explain to me what benefit you proposed to yourself when you
played for such stakes as that?"

"I hoped to win back what I had lost."

"Facilis descensus Averni!" said the Duke, shaking his head. "Noctes
atque dies patet atri janua Ditis." No doubt, he thought, that as his
son was at Oxford, admonitions in Latin would serve him better than
in his native tongue. But Gerald, when he heard the grand hexameter
rolled out in his father's grandest tone, entertained a comfortable
feeling that the worst of the interview was over. "Win back what
you had lost! Do you think that that is the common fortune of young
gamblers when they fall among those who are more experienced than
themselves?"

"One goes on, sir, without reflecting."

"Go on without reflecting! Yes; and where to? where to? Oh Gerald,
wher