to hand over sixpence after sixpence as the
evening went on. The sight of the money renewed my discomforts; it was
bad enough, so I felt, to play cards at all, but to play for money was a
thing I had always regarded with a sort of horror. Alas! how easy it
is, in the company of one's fancied superiors, to forget one's own poor
scruples!

The game at our table came to rather an abrupt end, brought on by a
difference of opinion between the Field-marshal and Mr Whipcord on some
point connected with a deal. It was a slight matter, but in the sharp
words that ensued my companions came out in a strangely new light.
Whipcord, especially, gave vent to language which utterly horrified me,
and the Field-Marshal was not backward to reply in a similar strain.

How long this interchange of language might have gone on I cannot say,
had not Doubleday opportunely interposed. "There you are, at it again,
you two, just like a couple of bargees! You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves! Look how you've shocked the young 'un there! You really
shouldn't!"

I coloured up at this speech. From the bantering tone in which
Doubleday spoke it seemed as if he half despised any one who was not
used to the sound of profanity; and I began to be angry with myself for
having looked so horrified.

The quarrel was soon made up with the help of some of the twopenny
cigars, which were now produced along with the beer-bottles. By this
time I had been sufficiently impressed by my company not to decline
anything, and I partook of both of these luxuries--that is, I made
believe to smoke a cigar, and kept a glass of beer in front of me, from
which I took a very occasional sip.

My mind was thoroughly uncomfortable. I had known all along I was not a
hero; but it had never occurred to me before that I was a coward. In
the course of one short evening I had forsaken more than one old
principle, merely because others did the same. I had joined in a laugh
against my best friend, because I had not the courage to stand up for
him behind his back, and I had tried to appear as if bad language and
drinking and gambling were familiar things to me, because I dared not
make a stand and confess I thought them loathsome.

We sat for a long time that night talking and cracking jokes, and
telling stories. Many of the latter were clever and amusing, but
others--those that raised the loudest laugh--were of a kind I had never
heard before, and which I blush now to