I'd have shown her that I meant to turn over a new
leaf,--that I was n't going to lead the life I have done. I 'd have told
her--though, I suppose, old Grog would murder me if he knew it--of
our grand martingale, and how we mean to smash the bank at Baden. No
deception about that,--no 'cross' there. She can't bring up grooms and
jockeys and stable-helpers against me now. It will all be done amongst
ourselves,--a family party, and no mistake!"

All things considered, Annesley Beecher, it was just as well for you
that you had not that "one moment" you wished for.

CHAPTER XXIV. A DEAD HEAT

Some eight or ten days have elapsed since the scene we have Just
recorded,--not one of whose incidents are we about to relate,--and
we are still at Holbach. As happens so frequently in the working of
a mathematical question, proofs are assumed without going over the
demonstrations; so, in real life,--certain postulates being granted,--we
arrive at conclusions which we regard as inevitable.

We are at Holbach, but no longer strolling along its leaf-strewn alleys,
or watching the laughing eddies of its circling river,--we are within
doors. The scene is a small, most comfortably furnished chamber of
the little inn, where an ample supper is laid out on a sideboard, a
card-table occupying the centre of the room, at which two players
are seated, their somewhat "charged" expressions and disordered dress
indicating a prolonged combat,--a fact in part corroborated by the
streak of pinkish dawn that has pierced between the shutters, and now
blends with the sickly glare of the candles. Several packs of cards
litter the floor around them, thrown there in that superstitious passion
only gamblers understand, and a decanter and some glasses stand on the
table beside the players, who are no others than our acquaintances Grog
Davis and Paul Classon.

There is a vulgar but not unwise adage that tells us "dogs do not eat
dogs," and the maxim has a peculiar application to gamblers. All
sorts and manners of men love to measure their strength with each
other,--swordsmen, swimmers, pedestrians, even hard drinking used to
have its duels of rivalry,--gamblers never. Such an employment of their
skill would seem to their eyes about as absurd as that of a sportsman
who would turn his barrel against his companion instead of the
cock-pheasant before him. Their "game" is of another order. How, then,
explain the curious fact we have mentioned? There are ri