"Not if I know it. This little affair I will keep to myself, and I'll sweep the market. You've let too many good things slip by this week. Come, now, confess: if you had stuck to your 'system,' how much would you have won? Don't put me off. You've gone all through it, and you know the figures to the fraction of a shilling."
Jeremiah struck his forehead with his hand. "I should have won seven thousand pounds."
"Exactly. And you did not win it because you weren't game, and because you allowed yourself to be led away. What is the good of a man unless he has the courage of his opinions? Before midnight I'm going to try you; I'm going to see whether you're worth trying to save (because you are in a frightful hole, you know, and there's no telling what will happen to you if you continue to show the white feather), or whether I shall let you go to the dogs. It depends upon me, old chap. Oppose me, show ingratitude, try to prove that you're cleverer than I am, and the odds are that you will have seven years—not less—perhaps fourteen. Oh, you are clever, you are! Make no mistake, you are clever; but you want nerve! Why, if you had been open with me—if you had told me honestly what your system was—we might both have made fortunes. But that's neither here nor there. Things are as they are, aren't they?"
"Yes, they are," sighed Jeremiah.
"Shall I go on?"
"Yes."
"Well, then. You brought down two thousand pounds with you, and you blued it. Eh?"
"Yes."
"I don't ask you where you got the money from. It is no business of mine, and I will have nothing to do with it. I have my ideas, but I'll keep them to myself. Having lost your two thousand pounds, you get me to introduce you to a book-maker, who took your bets in the expectation of paying you if you won, and receiving from you if you lost. And you did business with him in a false name."
"I didn't get you," protested Jeremiah; "you offered to introduce me; and it was at your suggestion I used the name of Farebrother."