ow stairs, and Jake Ruggles
appeared, his hair still damp from his morning ablutions and his face as
clean as his muddy complexion would permit.

"'Mornin', boss."

"Good morning, my lad."

"Chops?"

"Chops and repentance," said the goldsmith.

"Whatyer givin' us?" asked Jake, indignant. "Who's takin' any repentance
this morning?--not me, you bet."

"There's a game called Euchre, Jake--never play it. There is likewise a
game called Kitty, which is worse. You can lose more money in one night
at one of these games than you can earn in six months."

"Speak f'yerself," said the irreverent Jake. "I own I wasn't at a
temp'rance meetin' las' night, but I was in bed long before you come
home."

"I was attending a sick friend," said Benjamin, dishing up the chops. "I
confess I was kept out a little late."

"Must 'a' bin the horrors--I hope 'e didn't die."

"You are mistaken, my brilliant youth. But I own it was something not
unlike it. My friend was drugged while having a friendly game of chance
with men he deemed to be respectable. One of them dosed his liquor,
while another rooked him with loaded dice, and what with one thing and
another he was fleeced of all his cash, and was hocussed into the
bargain."

"An' what was _you_ doin' there?"

"I? I was being rooked too, but either the drug was the wrong sort to
hocuss _me_, or I overturned my glass by accident, but I escaped with
the loss of a few pounds."

"Hocuss yer grandmother!" Jake's ferret-like eyes looked unutterable
scorn. "Your bloomin' hocuss was brandy."

"The mind of Youth is perverse and foolish," said the goldsmith, as he
poured out the tea. "When the voice of Experience and the voice of
Wisdom say, 'Eschew cards, abjure dice, avoid men with lumps on their
necks and revolvers in their pockets,' sapient Youth says, 'The old
man's goin' dotty.' But we shall see. Youth's innings will come, and I
bet a fiver--no, no, what am I thinking of?--I stake my honour that
Youth's middle stump gets bowled first ball."

Three years before Tresco had arrived in Timber Town, and had started
business on borrowed money. Everything had favoured him but his own
improvidence, and on the eve of what he believed to be a financial boom,
he found himself in what he described as "a cleft stick." The quarter's
rent was a fortnight overdue, the interest on his mortgaged stock must
be paid in a few days; and in addition to this he was now saddled with a
debt of honour which