dealer how
"strong" he wanted it!

Then in the evening there was more dancing, and on Sunday another hunt.
That night a gambling mood seemed to seize the company--there were two
bridge tables, and in another room the most reckless game of poker that
Montague had ever sat in. It broke up at three in the morning, and one
of the company wrote him a cheque for sixty-five hundred dollars; but
even that could not entirely smooth his conscience, nor reconcile him
to the fever that was in his blood.

Most important to him, however, was the fact that during the game he at
last got to know Charlie Carter. Charlie did not play, for the reason
that he was drunk, and one of the company told him so and refused to
play with him; which left poor Charlie nothing to do but get drunker.
This he did, and came and hung over the shoulders of the players, and
told the company all about himself.

Montague was prepared to allow for the "wild oats" of a youngster with
unlimited money, but never in his life had he heard or dreamed of
anything like this boy. For half an hour he wandered about the table,
and poured out a steady stream of obscenities; his mind was like a
swamp, in which dwelt loathsome and hideous serpents which came to the
surface at night and showed their flat heads and their slimy coils. In
the heavens above or the earth beneath there was nothing sacred to him;
there was nothing too revolting to be spewed out. And the company
accepted the performance as an old story--the men would laugh, and push
the boy away, and say, "Oh, Charlie, go to the devil!"

After it was all over, Montague took one of the company aside and asked
him what it meant; to which the man replied: "Good God! Do you mean
that nobody has told you about Charlie Carter?"

It appeared that Charlie was one of the "gilded youths" of the
Tenderloin, whose exploits had been celebrated in the papers. And after
the attendants had bundled him off to bed, several of the men gathered
about the fire and sipped hot punch, and rehearsed for Montague's
benefit some of his leading exploits.

Charlie was only twenty-three, it seemed; and when he was ten his
father had died and left eight or ten millions in trust for him, in the
care of a poor, foolish aunt whom he twisted about his finger. At the
age of twelve he was a cigarette fiend, and had the run of the
wine-cellar. When he went to a rich private school he took whole trunks
full of cigarettes with him, and finally ran