n't care if there is a shindy over it. I shall not interfere unless I
can prove that the man is cheating, in which case no man of honor would
go out with him. I shall be glad if you and Boldero would go with me
again this evening. I am not known there, and you are to a good many
men, and Boldero to many more. I only want that, if I get into a row,
you should testify to the fact that I am a gentleman, and ordinarily
sane. If there is a row you will have an opportunity of seeing how much
I have benefited by my lessons."

"Yes, I heard you were making tremendous progress. Jack Needham told
me a month ago that you had knocked him out of time, and I went into
Gibbons' yesterday morning with a man who wanted to buy a dog, and he
told me that he considered that it was a great misfortune that you were
an amateur, for that you only required another six months' practice, and
he would then be ready to back you for a hundred pounds against any man
in the ring. But about this affair, Mark. Are you really in earnest?"

"I am, Dick, thoroughly in earnest; so would you be if you had spoken
to Cotter last night, as I did. I tell you that if I had not given him a
little hope that the thing might come out right, he would have blown out
his brains today."

"Well, Mark, if you have set your mind on it, of course I will stick to
you, though I have some doubts whether Cotter has any brains to speak
of to blow out, else he would not be mad enough to back himself against
Emerson and other men whom Boldero tells me he has been playing with."

"He has made an ass of himself, no doubt, Dick; but I fancy a good
many fellows do that at one time or other of their lives, though not, I
grant, always in the same way."

"Well, I will go, Mark. I need not ask Boldero, for he told me that he
should look in again at ten o'clock this evening, for he thought that
another night's play would probably bring Cotter to the end of his
tether."

Accordingly a little before ten they walked into the gambling house
together.

"Now, Dick, I want you, as soon as you sit down, to take your place in
the front line within a yard or two of Emerson. I don't want you to be
just behind him, but a short distance away; and I want you to keep your
eye upon Sir James Flash, who, if I am not mistaken, will take up the
same position that he did last night, near enough to Cotter to see
his hand. You will remark, I have no doubt, as I did last night, that
whenever Cotter has a