ve of cleanness,
clear-mindedness, and purity, died hard. But gambling was second nature
to him. He could not enjoy a game unless he had something on it; and all
book-makers and proprietors of gambling-houses were friends of his and
called him by his first name. Sometimes through a series of lucky turns
he rose to heights of picturesque affluence; more often he was
stone-broke; but so much money passed through his hands in the course of
a year that it was always possible for him to borrow and live well
enough on credit. Money became his passion, not for its own sake, not
for the sake of what it could buy, but because it was a game upon which
the best wits of the world have been engaged for ages and ages--and
because you have to have it, or be able to owe so much that it amounts
to the same thing.

At first when he got in a hole, owed money which he saw no way of
raising, Wilmot suffered all the anguish and remorse of the trustee who
has speculated with orphans' funds (for the first time) and lost them.
Gradually he became hardened. And those who knew him best could never
tell whether he was worth fifty thousand or had just lost that much. He
drew upon a stock of courage and cheerfulness worthy of even the noblest
cause, until the term "self-respect" dropped automatically from his
inner vocabulary and his moral sense became a rotten, rusty buckler
through which the spear of temptation or necessity passed like a pin
through a sheet of tissue-paper.

He put himself under obligation--in moments of supreme need--to
dangerous persons, and suffered from the familiarity and perhaps the
contempt of some who were his inferiors in breeding, in heart, and
in soul.

One day, being at his wit's end, he walked rapidly, seeking light,
through a quarter of the city which was not familiar to him. He was in
that mood when a man does not wish to be at the trouble of nodding or
exchanging a word even with his best friend. A voice hailed him,
"Mr. Allen."

He stopped and saw that the voice came from a legless man who sat in the
sun by a hand-organ on which were displayed for sale a few pairs of
shoe-laces and, to excite charity, a battered (and empty) tin cup.

"Have you forgotten me?"

The light of recognition had twinkled instantly in Wilmot's eyes, for he
was wonderful at remembering faces. And he smiled and said:

"Of course not. How are you?"

"Pretty well," said the beggar. "And you?"

"Pretty well."

Wilmot's giving hand