on and reached the play-table, where we found Sir Harry
Wycherley in low and earnest conversation with the young gentleman.
I could only catch a stray expression here and there, but even they
surprised me--the arguments advanced to deter him from gambling being
founded on the inconsiderate plan of his game, rather than on the
immorality and vice of the practice itself.

'Don't you see,' said Sir Harry, throwing his eye over the card all
dotted with pinholes--'don't you see it's a run, a dead run; that you
may bet on red, if you like, a dozen times, and only win once or twice?'
The youth blushed and said nothing.

'I 've seen forty thousand francs lost that way in less than an hour.'

'I've lost _seventy_ thousand!' muttered the young man, with a shudder
like one who felt cold all over.

'Seventy!--not to-night, surely?'

'Yes, to-night,' replied he. 'I won fourteen hundred naps here when
I came first, and didn't play for three weeks afterwards; but
unfortunately I strolled in here a few nights ago, and lost the whole
back, as well as some hundreds besides; but this evening I came bent on
winning back--that was all I desired--winning back my own.'

As he said these words, I saw Sir Harry steal a glance at Crotty. The
thing was as quick as lightning, but never did a glance reveal more; he
caught my eye upon him, and looking round fully at me said, in a deep,
ominous voice--

'That's the confounded part of it; it's so hard to stop when you 're
losing.'

'Hard!--impossible!' cried the youth, whose eyes were now riveted on
the table, following every card that fell from the banker's hands, and
flushing and growing pale with every alternation of the game. 'See
now, for all you've said, look if the red has not won four times in
succession?'

'So it has,' replied the baronet coolly; 'but the previous run on black
would have left your purse rather shallow, or you must have a devilish
deep one, that's all.'

He took up a pencil as he spoke, and began to calculate on the back of
the card; then holding it over, he said, 'There's what you 'd have lost
if you went on betting.'

'What!--two hundred and eighty thousand francs?'

'Exactly! Look here'; and he went over the figures carefully before him.

'Don't you think you've had enough of it to-night?' said Crotty, with
an insinuating smile; 'what say you if we all go and sup together in the
Saal?'

'Agreed,' said Sir Harry, rising at once. 'Crotty, will you look at th