“Ruined!” echoed she, while she grasped his arm and drew him closer to her side; “you surely had made friends—”
“Friends are capital things when the world goes well with you, but friends are fond of a good cook and iced champagne, and they don't fancy broken boots and a bad hat. Besides, what credit is to the merchant, luck is to one of us. Let the word get abroad luck is against you; let them begin to say, 'There 's that poor devil Davis in for it again; he's so unlucky!'—once they say that, you are shunned like a fellow with the plague; none will associate with you, none give you a helping hand or a word of counsel. Why, the grooms wouldn't gallop if I was on the ground, for fear my bad luck might strain a sinew and slip a ligament! And they were right too! Smile if you like, girl,—I am not a very superstitious fellow,—but nobody shall persuade me there ain't such a thing as luck. Be that as it may, mine turned,—I was ruined!”
“And were there none to come to your aid? You must surely have lent a helping hand to many—”
“Look here, girl,” said he; “now that we are on this subject, you may as well understand it aright. If a gentleman born—a fellow like Beecher, there—comes to grief, there's always plenty of others ready to serve him; some for the sake of his family, some for his name, some because there's always the chance that he may pay one day or other. Snobs, too, would help him, because he 's the Honorable Annesley Beecher; but it's vastly different when it's Grog Davis is in case. Every one rejoices when a leg breaks down.”
“A leg is the slang for—for—”
“For a betting man,” interposed Davis. “When a fellow takes up the turf as a profession, they call him 'a leg,'—not that they 'd exactly say it to his face!” added he, with a smile of intense sarcasm.
“Go on,” said she, faintly, after a slight pause.
“Go on with what?” cried he, rudely. “I've told you everything. You wanted to know what I was, and how I made my living. Well, you know it all now. To be sure, the newspapers, if you read them, could give you more precise details; but there's one thing, girl, they could n't blink,—there's not one of them could say that what my head planned overnight my hand was not ready to defend in the morning! I can't always throw a main, but I 'll hit my man,—and at five-and-thirty paces, if he don't like to stand closer.”
“And what led you to this life, papa? Was it choice?”
“I have told you enough already; too much, mayhap,” said he, doggedly. “Question me no more!”