. "I am quite prepared. Come on!"

"Stay; while my mind is working I like to have my hands employed. I
will proceed with my monkey while we talk," said Blunt, taking up a
walking-stick, the head of which he had carved into the semblance of a
monkey. "Sweet creature!" he added, kissing the object of his
affection, and holding it out at arm's-length. "Silent companion of my
solitary rambles, and patient auditor of my most secret aspirations, you
are becoming quite a work of art. A few more touches of the knife, and
something like perfection shall have been attained! Look here, Dick,
when I turn it towards the light--so--isn't there a beauty about the
contour of that upper lip and nose which--"

"Don't be a fool, Tom," interrupted his friend, somewhat impatiently;
"you seem to me to be growing more and more imbecile every day. We did
not sit down to discuss fine art--"

"True, Richard, true; but there is a power in the consideration of fine
art, which, when judiciously interpolated in the affairs of life, tends
to soften the asperities, to round away, as it were, the ruggedness of
human intercourse, and produce a tranquillity of mind which is eminently
conducive to--to--don't you see?"

"No, I don't see!"

"Then," continued Blunt, applying his knife to one of the monkey's eyes,
"there arises the question--how far is this intellectual blindness the
result of incapacity of intellectual vision, or of averted gaze, or of
the wilful shutting of the intellectual eyelids?"

"Well, well, Tom, let that question alone for the present. Let us come
to the point, for I wish to have my mind cleared up on the subject. You
hold that gambling is wrong--essentially wrong."

"I do; but let us not have a misunderstanding at the very beginning,"
said Blunt. "By gambling I do not mean the playing of games. That is
not gambling. What I understand by gambling is betting on games--or on
anything--and the playing of games for the purpose of winning money, or
anything that possesses value, great or small. Such gambling I hold to
be wrong--essentially, morally, absolutely wrong, without one particle
of right or good in it whatever."

As he spoke Blunt became slightly more earnest in tone, and less devoted
to the monkey.

"Well, now, Tom, do you know I don't see that."

"If you did see it, my dear fellow," returned Blunt, resuming his airy
tone, "our discussion of the subject would be useless."

"Well, then, I _can't_ see it