re of it. He wished it had
been his wager instead of Smith's. But Parkins stopped Smith a moment.

"Now, young man," he said, "if you don't feel perfectly able to lose
that hundred dollars, you'd better take it back."

"I am just as able to lose it as you are," said Smith snappishly, and to
everybody's disappointment he lifted not the card everybody had fixed
on, but the middle one, and so lost his money.

"Why didn't you take the other?" said Norman boastfully. "I knew it was
the ace."

"Why didn't you bet, then?" said Smith, grinning a little. Norman wished
he had. But he had not a hundred dollars of his own, and he had
scruples--faint, and yet scruples, or rather alarms--at the thought of
risking his employer's money on a wager. While he was weighing motive
against motive, Smith bet again, and again, to Norman's vexation,
selected a card that was so obviously wrong that Norman thought it a
pity that so near-sighted a man should bet and lose. He wished he had a
hundred dollars of his own and--There, Smith was betting again. This
time he consulted Norman before making his selection, and of course
turned up the right card, remarking that he wished his eyes were so
keen! He would win a thousand dollars before bed-time if his eyes were
so good! Then he took Norman into partnership, and Norman found himself
suddenly in possession of fifty dollars, gotten without trouble. This
turned his brain. Nothing is so intoxicating to a weak man as money
acquired without toil. So Norman continued to bet, sometimes
independently, sometimes in partnership with, the gentlemanly Smith. He
was borne on by the excitement of varying fortune, a varying fortune
absolutely under control of the dealer, whose sleight-of-hand was
perfect. And the varying fortune had an unvarying tendency in the long
run--to put three stakes out Of five into the pockets of the gamblers,
who found the little game very interesting amusement for gentlemen.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE RESULT OF AN EVENING WITH GENTLEMEN.

All the time that these smiling villains were by consummate art drawing
their weak-headed victim into their tolls, what was August doing? Where
were his prompt decision of character, his quick intelligence, his fine
German perseverance, that should have saved the brother of Julia
Anderson from harpies? Could our blue-eyed young countryman, who knew
how to cherish noble aspirations walking in a plowman's furrow--could he
stand there satisfying his