t it heavy and thick." "Must have lost close on a
thousand Naps." "Bank walked into him;" and so on,----comments as free
from any tone of sympathy as the proudest heart could possibly have
asked for. But even these were easier to bear than the little playful
cajoleries of Mrs. Ricketts on his supposed successes.

Knowing him to be a frequent winner, and hearing from Scroope the large
sums he occasionally carried away, she invariably accosted him with
some little jesting rebuke on his "dreadful luck"--that "wicked good
fortune"--that would follow him in everything and everywhere.

Purvis had been a close spectator of all that went on this unlucky
evening, and was actually occupied with his pencil in calculating the
losses when Peter entered the room.

"He had above eighteen or twenty bank-notes of a th-thousand francs,"
cried he, "when he be-be-began the evening. They are all gone now. He
played at least a dozen 'rouleaux' of fifty Naps.; and as to the bag, I
can m-make no guess how m-m-much it held."

"I 'll tell you then, sir," said Peter, good-humoredly, as he just
overheard the last remark. "The bag held three hundred and eighty
Napoleons; and as you 're pretty correct in the other items, you 'll
not be far from the mark by adding about fifty or sixty Naps, for little
bets here and there."

"What coolness, what stoical indifference!" whispered Mrs. Ricketts to
Martha, but loud enough for Dalton to hear. "That is so perfectly
Irish; they can be as impetuous as the Italian, and possess all the
self-restraint and impassive bearing of the Indian warrior."

"But w-w-why did you go on, when luck was a-a-gainst you?"

"Who told me it was against me till I lost all my money?" cried Dalton.
"If the first reverse was to make a man feel beat, it would be a very
cowardly world, Mr. Purvis."

"Intensely Irish!" sighed Mrs. Ricketts.

"Well, maybe it is," broke in Peter, who was not in a mood to accept
anything in a complimentary sense. "Irish it may be; and as you remarked
a minute ago, we're little better than savages--"

"Oh, Mr. Dalton,----dear Mr. Dalton!"

"No matter; I'm not angry, ma'am. The newspapers says as bad,--ay,
worse, every day of the week. But what I 'm observing is, that the man
that could teach me how to keep my money could never have taught me how
to win it You know the old proverb about the 'faint heart, 'Mr. Purvis?"

"Yes; but I----I----I don't want a f-f-fair lady!"

"Faix! I believe you're