, absolute lie,--he had induced Frank to play on boldly to
his own ruin.

But was he alone to blame? Even if he had told the truth about Joe's
hand, ought Frank to have been influenced by it? He had no right to that
knowledge, and to take advantage of it was dishonest.

No doubt Frank himself thought so, now he reflected upon it. To accuse
Jack was to confess his own disingenuousness. He was by nature as fair
and open as the day; he despised a base deception; and it was only as an
inevitable consequence of such wrong doings as lead directly to
faithlessness and duplicity, that he could ever become guilty of these
immoralities.

Such is the vice of gambling--a process by which men hope to obtain their
neighbors' goods without yielding an equivalent for them; and which,
therefore, inflames covetousness, and accustoms the mind to the
contemplation of unjust gains, until it is ready to resort to any unjust
means of securing them. Do you say there are honest gamblers? The term is
a contradiction. You might, with equal consistency, talk of truthful
liars. To get your money, or any thing else, without rendering an
equitable return, is the core of all dishonesty, whether in the gamester,
the pickpocket, the man who cheats in trade, or the boy who robs
orchards. And a conscience once debauched by dishonest aims, will not, as
I said, long scruple at unfair means.

Singularly enough, Frank was more abashed by the betrayal of the unfair
means he had attempted to use, than he had yet been by any consciousness
of the immorality of the practice which led to them. He could not say to
Winch, "You told me I was sure of winning, and so deceived me." He only
looked at him a moment, with wild distress and exasperation on his face,
which quickly changed to an expression of morose and bitter despair; and
dropping his head, and putting up his hands, he burst into irrepressible
sobs.

"My watch! my watch that was given to me--" and which he had so
ignominiously gambled away. No wonder he wept. No wonder he shook from
head to foot with the passion of grief, as the conviction of his own
folly and infatuation burned like intolerable fire in his soul.

"Dry up, baby!" said Jack, through his teeth. "There comes the captain."

Baby? Poor Frank! It was because he was not altogether given over to
recklessness and vice that he cried at the thought of his lost watch, and
of his gross ingratitude to the unknown giver. Still he felt that it was
wea