t my dear husband did, as you say, lay you under many
obligations because he was always kind to every one, but I cannot I
assure you--"

"Very well," interrupted the captain, wiping his bald head with his
pocket-handkerchief angrily, "then the money shall go to some charity--
some--some ridiculous asylum or hospital for teaching logarithms to the
Hottentots of the Cape, or something of that sort. I tell you, madam,"
he added with increased vehemence, seeing that Mrs Tipps still shook
her head, "I tell you that I _robbed_ your husband of five hundred
pounds!"

"Robbed him!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps, somewhat shocked. "Oh, Captain Lee,
impossible!"

"Yes I did," replied the captain, crossing his arms and nodding his head
firmly, "robbed him. I laid a bet with him to that extent and won it."

"That is not usually considered robbery, Captain Lee," said Mrs Tipps
with a smile.

"But that ought to be considered robbery," replied the captain, with a
frown. "Betting is a mean, shabby, contemptible way of obtaining money
for nothing on false pretences. The man who bets says in his heart, `I
want my friend's money without the trouble of working for it, therefore
I'll offer to bet with him. In so doing I'll risk an equal sum of my
own money. That's fair and honourable!' Is that logic?" demanded the
captain, vehemently, "It is not! In the first place it is mean to want,
not to speak of accepting, another man's money without working for it,
and it is a false pretence to say that you risk your own money because
it is _not_ your own, it is your wife's and your children's money, who
are brought to poverty, mayhap, because of your betting tendencies, and
it is your baker's and butcher's money, whose bread and meat you devour
(as long as they'll let you) without paying for it, because of your
betting tendencies, and a proportion of it belongs to your church, which
you rob, and to the poor, whom you defraud, because of your betting
tendencies; and if you say that when you win the case is altered, I
reply, yes, it is altered for the worse, because, instead of bringing
all this evil down on your own head you hurl it, not angrily, not
desperately, but, worse, with fiendish _indifference_ on the head of
your friend and his innocent family. Yes, madam, although many men do
not think it so, betting _is_ a dishonourable thing, and I'm ashamed of
having done it. I repent, Mrs Tipps, the money burns my fingers, and I
_must_ return it."