"I have a great fancy to let you see the inside of a gambling house for once," was the quiet reply.
"A gambling house? Oh, Mr. Leicester!"
"I have often thought," said Leicester, as if speaking to himself, "that the best way of curing that ardent curiosity with which youth always regards the unseen, is to expose evil at once, in all its glare and iniquity. The gambling house is sometimes a fine moral school. Robert, have you never heard grave men assert as much?"
Robert did not answer, but a cloud settled on his white forehead, and taking his cap from Leicester, who held it toward him, he began to crush it nervously with his hand.
"The storm is over, I believe," observed Leicester, without seeming to observe his agitation. "Come, we shall be in time for the excitement when it is most revolting."
Robert grew pale and shrunk back.
"Not with me?" cried Leicester, turning his eyes full upon the boy with a look of overwhelming reproach, "are you afraid to go with me, Robert?"
"No. I will go anywhere with you!" answered the youth, almost with a sob, for that look of reproach from his benefactor wounded him to the heart. "I will go anywhere with you!"
And he went.