"Hum! Bitten," said Jim to himself, but so that Thomas heard him.
"Not very badly, Jim. In the pocket-book I told you I lost I had a hundred pounds, won at cards the night before last."
"My eye!" exclaimed Jim. "What a devil of a pity! But why don't you try your luck again?" he asked, after a few moments of melancholy devoted to the memory of the money.
"Look here, Jim. I don't know where to go to sleep. I have a comfortable room that I dare not go near; a father—a rich man, I believe—who would turn me out; and, in short, I've ruined myself forever with card-playing. The sight of a pack would turn me sick, I do believe."
"Sorry for you, guv'nor. I know a fellow, though, that makes a good thing of the thimble."
"I've no turn for tailoring, I'm afraid."
"Beggin' your pardon, guv'nor, but you are a muff! You never thought I meant a gen'leman like you to take to a beastly trade like that. I meant the thimble and peas, you know, at fairs, and such like. It's all fair, you know. You tell 'em they don't know where the pea is and they don't. I know a friend o' mine'll put you up to it for five or six bob. Bless you! there's room for free trade and money made."
Thomas could hardly be indignant with Jim for speaking according to his kind. But when he looked into it, it stung him to the heart to think that every magistrate would regard him as capable of taking to the profession of thimble-rigging after what he had been already guilty of. Yet in all his dealings with cards Thomas had been scrupulously honorable. He said no more to Jim about finding something to do.
They had gone a good way, and Thomas's strength was beginning to fail him quite. Several times Jim had inquired after the Marmaid, always in public-houses, where he paid for the information or none, as the case might be, by putting a name upon something at Thomas's expense; so that he began to be rather uplifted.
At length he called out joyfully: