“Too interesting! why, that's the beauty of it; almost every other game is a bore, and tires one, because one does not get sufficiently interested to forget the trouble of it; what can you mean by too interesting?”
“You won't be angry at what I am going to say, will you?” said I, looking up in his face.
“Angry with you, my dear boy! no fear of that; always say just what you think to me, and, if it happens to be disagreeable, why it can't be helped; I would rather hear a disagreeable truth from a friend any day, than have it left for some ill-natured person to bring out, when he wants to annoy me.”
“All I meant to say was this,” I replied; “it seems to me that you get so much excited by the game, that you go on playing longer, and for higher stakes, than you intended to do when you began,—surely,” continued I, “it cannot be right to lose such sums of money merely for amusement; is it not gambling?”
“I believe you are right, Frank,” replied Oaklands, after a short pause, during which he had apparently been revolving the matter in his mind; “when one comes to think seriously about it, it is a most unprofitable way of getting rid of one's money; you will scarcely credit it,” continued he, half-smiling, “but I declare to you I have been playing almost every day for the last two months.”
“So long as that?” interrupted I, aghast.
“There or thereabouts,” said Oaklands, laughing at the tone of horror in which I had spoken; “but I was going to say,” he continued, “that till this moment—looking upon it merely as an amusement, something to keep one from going to sleep over a newspaper in that vile reading-room—I have never taken the trouble to consider whether there was any right or wrong in the matter. I am very much obliged to you for the hint, Frank; I'll think it all over to-night, and see how much I owe Master Cumberland, and I'll tell you to-morrow what conclusion I have come to. I hate to do anything in a hurry—even to think; one must take time to do that well.”
We had now reached home, and, mindful of his promise, Oaklands begged Thomas to use his interest with the cook, for the purpose of postponing dinner for a few minutes, in order to give Cumberland a chance of being ready—to which Thomas replied:—
“Very well, sir, anything to oblige you, Mr. Oaklands,” muttering to himself as he went off, “wonder what that chap Cumberland is up to now; no good, I'll be bound”.
In another minute we heard his voice in the lower regions, exclaiming:—