"It was you, Jack Winch! You made me——"
"Made you what?" said John, insolently.
What, indeed? He had by looks, which spoke as plainly as words, assured Frank that Harris held but an indifferent hand; whereas he held the best the pack afforded. By that falsehood,—for, with looks and actions at your command, it is not necessary to open your mouth in order to tell the most downright, absolute lie,—he had induced Frank to play on boldly to his own ruin.
But was he alone to blame? Even if he had told the truth about Joe's hand, ought Frank to have been influenced by it? He had no right to that knowledge, and to take advantage of it was dishonest.
No doubt Frank himself thought so, now he reflected upon it. To accuse Jack was to confess his own disingenuousness. He was by nature as fair and open as the day; he despised a base deception; and it was only as an inevitable consequence of such wrong doings as lead directly to faithlessness and duplicity, that he could ever become guilty of these immoralities.
Such is the vice of gambling—a process by which men hope to obtain their neighbors' goods without yielding an equivalent for them; and which, therefore, inflames covetousness, and accustoms the mind to the contemplation of unjust gains, until it is ready to resort to any unjust means of securing them. Do you say there are honest gamblers? The term is a contradiction. You might, with equal consistency, talk of truthful liars. To get your money, or any thing else, without rendering an equitable return, is the core of all dishonesty, whether in the gamester, the pickpocket, the man who cheats in trade, or the boy who robs orchards. And a conscience once debauched by dishonest aims, will not, as I said, long scruple at unfair means.
Singularly enough, Frank was more abashed by the betrayal of the unfair means he had attempted to use, than he had yet been by any consciousness of the immorality of the practice which led to them. He could not say to Winch, "You told me I was sure of winning, and so deceived me." He only looked at him a moment, with wild distress and exasperation on his face, which quickly changed to an expression of morose and bitter despair; and dropping his head, and putting up his hands, he burst into irrepressible sobs.
"My watch! my watch that was given to me—" and which he had so ignominiously gambled away. No wonder he wept. No wonder he shook from head to foot with the passion of grief, as the conviction of his own folly and infatuation burned like intolerable fire in his soul.
"Dry up, baby!" said Jack, through his teeth. "There comes the captain."
Baby? Poor Frank! It was because he was not altogether given over to recklessness and vice that he cried at the thought of his lost watch, and of his gross ingratitude to the unknown giver. Still he felt that it was weak in him to cry. He who risks his property in order to get possession of another's should be philosopher enough to take with equanimity the loss of his own.