being able to retrieve himself by the same means that
he was ruined?'

"Thus we used to converse, but our conversation was usually of but
little comfort to either of us, for we could give neither any comfort to
the other; and as that was usually the case, our interviews became less
frequent, and of less duration. My answer was always the same.

"'I have no other chance; my prospects are limited to that one place;
deprive me of that, and I never more should be able to bring you a
mouthful of bread.'

"Day after day,--day after day, the same result followed, and I was as
far from success as ever I was, and ever should be; I was yet a beggar.

"The time flew by; my little girl was nearly four years old, but she
knew not the misery her father and mother had to endure. The poor little
thing sometimes went without more than a meal a day; and while I was
living thus upon the town, upon the chances of the gaming-table, many a
pang did she cause me, and so did her mother. My constant consolation
was this,--

"'It is bad luck now,' I would say; 'but will be better by-and-bye;
things cannot always continue thus. It is all for them--all for them.'

"I thought that by continuing constantly in one course, I must be at
land at the ebb of the tide. 'It cannot always flow one way,' I thought.
I had often heard people say that if you could but have the resolution
to play on, you must in the end seize the turn of fortune.

"'If I could but once do that, I would never enter a hell again as long
as I drew breath.'

"This was a resolve I could not only make but keep, because I had
suffered so much that I would never run through the same misery again
that I had already gone through. However, fortune never seemed inclined
to take the turn I had hoped for; fortune was as far off as ever, and
had in no case given me any opportunity of recovering myself.

"A few pounds were the utmost I could at any time muster, and I had to
keep up something of an appearance, and seem as if I had a thousand a
year; when, God knows, I could not have mustered a thousandth part of
that sum, were all done and paid for.

"Day after day passed on, and yet no change. I had almost given myself
up to despair, when one night when I went home I saw my wife was more
than usually melancholy and sad, and perhaps ill; I didn't look at
her--I seldom did, because her looks were always a reproach to me; I
could not help feeling them so.

"'Well,' said I, 'I have come