,
with its black and red compartments, and its little ivory ball to rattle
round and finally fall into one of them, was placed, with a cloth marked
in compartments answering to those in the wheel for the gamblers to
stake their money upon. This game proved very fascinating to the
dissipated amongst the farmers' sons round about, and to some of the
farmers too, and money which ought to have gone to buy stock, or for the
rent, was lost at that table. Of course some of them won occasionally,
and considerable sums, for them, too; that formed the fascination of it.

But the agricultural interest was depressed, and ready money not
forthcoming to the extent Josiah Slam desired; so upper servants of the
neighbouring gentry were admitted, under strong vows of secrecy, and
more than one gamekeeper's and huntsman's family was short of coals and
meat that winter, because the money to provide such necessaries was left
on that satanic, innocent-looking table. Every night this gambling went
on, and Josiah made a good deal of money by it, being prepared, however,
to clear out of the neighbourhood at the first symptom of the police
having caught scent of the affair.

Ready money was waning and business growing slack when the Weston boys
came back from the Christmas holidays, and Josiah, who knew that some of
them frequented his father's yard, saw a fine opportunity of augmenting
his gains by setting his little ball rolling in the daytime for their
especial benefit. The scheme was nearly stifled by its own success; on
the very first occasion a boy won four pounds, and could not conceal the
triumphant fact from two or three intimate friends, who each whispered
it to two or three others, and the consequence was that on the next
Saturday afternoon no fewer than thirty Westonians came to Slam's yard
seeking admittance. This alarmed old Slam, who saw a speedy prospect of
discovery, and of that hold upon him which the authorities had long been
seeking, being afforded them, to the consequent break up of his
establishment. Better small safe profits which should last, he thought,
than a haul, which after all must be limited to the amount of the
school-boys' pocket-money, and be shared with his son, and the stoppage
of all his little sources of profit. Not to mention the prospect of
legal punishment. So the thirty had to go away again grumbling, with
their money in their pockets. _O fortunati, si sua bona norint_.

But small parties of