ery bait! I am
quite relieved that you lost that money. This is an early lesson against
gambling, and no one can ever be rich or happy who becomes fond of it.
We were wrong to bring you here at all; and I now see you could easily
be led into that dreadful vice, which has caused misery and ruin to
thousands of young men. If you had possessed an estate, it would have
been thrown away quite as foolishly as the poor half-crown, making you
perhaps miserable afterwards for life."

"I thought myself quite sure to win!" exclaimed Harry, still looking
with angry astonishment after Peter, who was making odd grimaces, and
holding up the half-crown in a most teazing manner. "I would rather have
thrown my money into the sea than given it to Peter."

"Think, too, how many pleasanter and better ways there are, in which you
might have spent it!" added Lady Rockville. "Look at that poor blind man
whom you could have relieved, or consider what a nice present you should
have given to Laura! But there seem to be no more brains in your head,
Harry, than in her thimble!"

"Peter is quite a little black-leg already," observed Miss Perceval. "I
never saw such a boy! So fond of attracting notice, that he would put on
a cap and bells if that would make him stared at. Last Saturday he
undertook for a bet to make a ceremonious bow to every lamp-post along
Prince's Street, and I wish you could have seen the wondering crowd that
gradually collected as he went along, performing his task with the most
perfect composure and impudence."

"For cool assurance, I hope there are not many boys equal to him," said
Lady Rockville. "He scattered out of the window lately several red-hot
half-pence, among some beggars, and I am told they perfectly stuck to
the poor creatures' fingers when trying to pick them up; and he was sent
a message, on his pony, one very cold day lately, to Lady De Vere's, who
offered, when he was taking leave, to cut him one of her finest
camellias, to which he replied, 'I would much rather you offered me a
hot potatoe!'"

"Peter feels no sympathy in your disappointment, Harry," added Miss
Perceval; "but we might as well expect wool on a dog, as friendship from
a gambler, who would ruin his own father, and always laughs at those who
lose."

"Go and cut your wisdom teeth, Harry!" said Captain Digby, smiling. "Any
one must have been born blind not to observe that the grey horse was
falling behind; but you have bought half-a-crown's wo