then you put up eight guineas ...
and win. Whereupon you are just as you were before."

And with a somewhat unsteady hand the young man raised a bumper to his
lips, whilst eying Sir Michael with the shifty and inquiring eye
peculiar to the intoxicated.

"Meseems that if you but abstain from playing altogether," quoth Sir
Michael impatiently, "the result would still be the same.... And suppose
you lose the eight guineas, what then?"

"Oh! 'tis vastly simple--you put up sixteen."

"But if you lose that?"

"Put up thirty-two...."

"But if you have not thirty-two guineas to put up?" urged Sir Michael,
who was obstinate.

"Nay! then, my friend," said Lord Walterton with a laugh which soon
broke into an ominous hiccough, "ye must not in that case play upon my
system."

"Well said, my lord," here interposed Endicott, who had most moderately
partaken of a cup of hypocras, and whose eye and hand were as steady as
heretofore. "Well said, pardi! ... My old friend the Marquis of
Swarthmore used oft to say in the good old days of Goring's Club, that
'twas better to lose on a system, than to play on no system at all."

"A smart cavalier, old Swarthmore," assented Sir Michael gruffly, "and
nathless, a true friend to you, Endicott," he added significantly.

"Another deal, Master Endicott," said Segrave, who for the last quarter
of an hour had vainly tried to engage the bank-holder's attention.

Nor was Lord Walterton averse to this. The more the wine got into his
head, the more unsteady his hand became, the more strong was his desire
to woo the goddess whose broken-nosed image seemed to be luring him to
fortune.

"You are right, Master Segrave," he said thickly, "we are wasting
valuable time. Who knows but what old Noll's police-patrol is lurking in
this cutthroat alley? ... Endicott, take the bank again.... I'll swear
I'll ruin ye ere the moon--which I do not see--disappears down the
horizon. Sir Michael, try my system.... Overbury, art a laggard? ... Let
us laugh and be merry--to-morrow is the Jewish Sabbath--and after that
Puritanic Sunday ... after which mayhap, we'll all go to hell, driven
thither by my Lord Protector. Wench, another bumper ... canary, sack or
muscadel ... no thin Rhenish wine shall e'er defile this throat!
Gentlemen, take your places.... Mistress Endicott, can none of these
wenches discourse sweet music whilst we do homage to the goddess of
Fortune? ... To the tables ... to the tables, gentlemen .