nd one by
one the moody bank-keeper sweeps the money into his fast-increasing
heap. "Cursed fate!--it is against me," mutters the forlorn man.
"Another gone, and yet another! How this deluding, this fascinating
money tortures me." With hectic face and agitated nerve, he puts down
his last dollar. "Luck's mysterious!" exclaims Mr. Snivel, looking on
unmoved, as the man of the moody face declares a blank, and again sweeps
the money into his heap. "Gone!" says George, "all's gone now." He rises
from his seat, in despair.

"Don't get frantic, George--be a philosopher--try again--here's a ten.
Luck 'll turn," says Mr. Snivel, patting the deluded man familiarly on
the shoulder, as he resumes his seat. "Will poverty never cease
torturing me? I have tried to be a man, an honest man, a respectable
man. And yet, here I am, again cast upon a gambler's sea, struggling
with its fearful tempests. How cold, how stone-like the faces around
me!" he muses, watching with death-like gaze each number as it turns up.
Again he has staked his last dollar; again fortune frowns upon him. Like
a furnace of livid flame, the excitement seems burning up his brain. "I
am a fool again," he says, throwing the blank number contemptuously upon
the table. "Take it--take it, speechless, imperturbable man! Rake it
into your pile, for my eyes are dim, and my fortune I must seek
elsewhere."

A noise at the door, as of some one in distress, is heard, and there
rushes frantically into the den a pale, dejected-looking woman, bearing
in her arms a sick and emaciated babe. "Oh, William! William!--has it
come to this?" she shrieks, casting a wild glance round the den, until,
with a dark, sad expression, her eye falls upon the object of her
search. It is her husband, once a happy mechanic. Enticed by degrees
into this den of ruin, becoming fascinated with its games of chance, he
is how an _habitue_. To-night he left his suffering family, lost his all
here, and now, having drank to relieve his feelings, lies insensible on
the floor. "Come home!--come home! for God's sake come home to your
suffering family," cries the woman, vaulting to him and taking him by
the hand, her hair floating dishevelled down her shoulders. "I sent
Tommy into the street to beg--I am ashamed--and he is picked up by the
watch for a thief, a vagrant!" The prostrate man remains insensible to
her appeal. Two policemen, who have been quietly neglecting their duties
while taking a few chances, si