arer than the
most mystic ball of crystal. Before the bottle the priests of Egypt and
the Delphic oracle seem as faint, my son, as the echoes in a snail shell.
Palmistry and astrology--let us fling them into the whirlpool of vanity!
But give a man wine enough, and any observer can tell his possibilities.
A touch of it--and where are the barriers with which he has surrounded
himself? Another drop, and how futile are all the deceptions which he is
wont to practice upon others! In St. Kitts once I drank wine with a most
respectable merchant, a man who carried the Bible beside his snuff box,
and referred to both almost as frequently as he did to the profit and
balance on his ledger. And would you believe it? The next time he met me,
he blamed me for the loss of many thousands of pounds. He even laid at my
door certain reprehensible indiscretions of his wife, though I could have
told him that night over the glasses that both were inevitable long
before either occurred.

"But pray do not look at me so blankly, my son. It was not clairvoyance
on my part--merely simple reasoning, aided by very excellent and very
heady Madeira. How true it is that there is truth in wine--and money too,
if the grape is used to the proper advantage.

"Again--some men talk of fortune at cards, good luck or bad, but as for
me, I can tell how the luck will run by the number of bottles that are
placed beside the table. A little judgment, and the crudest
reasoning--that is all. But doubtless mutual friends have already
hinted to you of my propensities at cards--and other things. Is it not
so, my son?"

Was it the gentle inflection of the question, or his intent glance that
made me feel, as I had felt before that day, that I was face to face with
an alert antagonist? He called on me to speak, and I was loth to break my
silence. If he had only left me to my own bitter thoughts,--but why
should I have expected him to be tactful? Why should I have expected him
to be different from the gossip that clouded his name?

"Your card playing is still remembered, sir," I told him. "I have heard
of it two months back."

Deliberately he pushed one of the candles aside, so that the light should
stand less between us, poured himself another glass of wine, and flicked
the dust from the bottle off his sleeve.

"Indeed?" was his comment. "Your memory does you credit, even though
youthful impressions are apt to lodge fast. Or shall I say it is only
another proof of