"The last one."
"Please God—yes; the last one. At the commencement of one of them, about six months ago, I fell an easy victim to some card-sharpers; I was a stranger within their gates and they took me in—literally. I had no more idea what I was playing than I had of the character of the players. A thousand pounds was the amount they said I had lost, and I was too far gone to deny it. Of course I had not that money on me. I was made to sign a cheque they drew on my bankers on a half-sheet of note paper with a penny stamp stuck on it."
"I see."
"I was reaching the shaky stage then, Prince, when the hands need a ton-weight pressure to prevent their acting like aspen leaves. The bank refused payment on the ground of 'difference of signature.' The card-sharping people consulted the six-and-eightpenny fraternity and issued a writ for that thousand pounds. Served it on me whilst I was lying in bed in a state of mental insensibility."
"Is it possible? I wonder the process-server was allowed to enter your room."
"He was the kind that could not be kept out. They had a wily little lawyer acting for them—I found this all out afterwards, of course. He found out the name of the medical man attending me and presented himself as the doctor's assistant; so served me."
"What a beastly trick!"
"Success attended its performance, though. The game was in their own hands, and they were playing it by the end-justifying-the-means rule. Eight days after service judgment was signed and an execution was put in at my sister's house at Wivernsea."
"Why on earth there?"
"Part of the game they were playing. They had made inquiries, and found that I was living in London at the time in a furnished flat. I suppose they relied on my sister paying the execution out."