It can be scarcely within the year, though, for it was at the time when an audacious betting gang “squatted” in the vicinity of Ludgate-hill, and, owing to some hitch in the law’s machinery, they could not easily be removed. First they swarmed in Bride-lane, Fleet-street. Being compelled to “move on,” they migrated to a most appropriate site, the waste land on which for centuries stood the infamous houses of Field-lane and West-street, and beneath which flowed the filthy Fleet-ditch. But even this was accounted ground too good to be desecrated by the foot of the gambling blackleg, and they were one fine morning bundled off it by a strong body of City police. After this they made a desperate stand on the prison side of the way in Farringdon-street, and for some months there remained.
It was at this time that I made the acquaintance of the subject of the present little story. I had noticed him repeatedly, with his pale haggard face and his dull eyes, out of which nothing but weariness of life looked. He was a tall slim young fellow, and wore his patched and seedy clothes as though he had been used to better attire; and, despite the tell-tale shabbiness of his boots and his wretched tall black hat, he still clung to the respectable habit of wearing black kid-gloves, though it was necessary to shut his fists to hide the dilapidations at their finger-tips.
He was not remarkable amongst the betting blackguards he mingled with on account of the active share he took in the questionable business in which they were engaged; on the contrary, he seemed quite out of place with them, and though occasionally one would patronise him with a nod, it was evident that he was “nothing to them,” either as a comrade or a gull to be plucked. He appeared to be drawn towards them by a fascination he could not resist, but which he deplored and was ashamed of. It was customary in those times for the prosperous horse-betting gambler to affect the genteel person who could afford to keep a “man,” and to press into his service some poor ragged wretch glad to earn a sixpence by wearing his master’s “card of terms” round his neck for the inspection of any person inclined to do business. The tall shabby young fellow’s chief occupation consisted in wandering restlessly from one of these betting-card bearers to another, evidently with a view to comparing “prices” and “odds” offered on this or that horse; but he never bet. I don’t believe that his pecuniary affairs would have permitted him, even though a bet as low as twopence-halfpenny might be laid.
I was always on the look-out for my miserable-looking young friend whenever I passed that way, and seldom failed to find him. He seemed to possess for me a fascination something like that which horse-betting possessed for him. One afternoon, observing him alone and looking even more miserable than I had yet seen him, as he slouched along the miry pavement towards Holborn, I found means to start a conversation with him. My object was to learn who and what he was, and whether he was really as miserable as he looked, and whether there was any help for him. I was prepared to exercise all the ingenuity at my command to compass this delicate project, but he saved me the trouble. As though he was glad of the chance of doing so, before we were half-way up Holborn-hill he turned the conversation exactly into the desired groove, and by the time the Tottenham-court-road was reached (he turned down there), I knew even more of his sad history than is here subjoined.
“What is the business pursuit that takes me amongst the betting-men? O no, sir, I’m not at all astonished that you should ask the question; I’ve asked it of myself so often, that it doesn’t come new to me. I pursue no business, sir. What business could a wretched scarecrow like I am pursue? Say that I am pursued, and you will be nearer the mark. Pursued by what I can never get away from or shake off: damn it!”
He uttered the concluding wicked word with such decisive and bitter emphasis, that I began to think that he had done with the subject; but he began again almost immediately.
“I wish to the Lord I had a business pursuit! If ever a fellow was tired of his life, I am. Well—yes, I am a young man; but it’s precious small consolation that that fact brings me. Hang it, no! All the longer to endure it. How long have I endured it? Ah, now you come to the point. For years, you think, I daresay. You look at me, and you think to yourself, ‘There goes a poor wretch who has been on the downhill road so long that it’s time that he came to the end of it, or made an end to it.’ There you are mistaken. Eighteen months ago I was well dressed and prosperous. I was second clerk to —, the provision merchants, in St. Mary Axe, on a salary of a hundred and forty pounds—rising twenty each year. Now look at me!
“You need not ask me how it came about. You say that you have seen me often in Farringdon-street with the betting-men, so you can give a good guess as to how I came to ruin, I’ll be bound. Yes, sir, it was horse-betting that did my business. No, I did not walk to ruin with my eyes open, and because I liked the road. I was trapped into it, sir, as I’ll be bound scores and scores of young fellows have been. I never had a passion for betting. I declare that, till within the last two years, I never made a bet in my life. The beginning of it was, that, for the fun of the thing, I wagered ten shillings with a fellow-clerk about the Derby that was just about to come off. I never took any interest in horseracing before; but when I had made that bet I was curious to look over the sporting news, and to note the odds against the favourite. One unlucky day I was fool enough to answer the advertisement of a professional tipster. He keeps the game going still, curse him! You may read his name in the papers this morning. If I wasn’t such an infernal coward, you know, I should kill that man. If I hadn’t the money to buy a pistol, I ought to steal one, and shoot the thief. But, what do you think? I met him on Monday, and he chaffed me about my boots. It was raining at the time. ‘I wish I had a pair of waterproofs like yours, Bobby. You’ll never take cold while they let all the water out at the heel they take in at the toe!’ Fancy me standing that after the way he had served me! Fancy this too—me borrowing a shilling of him, and saying ‘Thank you, sir,’ for it! Why, you know, I ought to be pumped on for doing it!
“Yes, I wrote to ‘Robert B—y, Esq., of Leicester,’ and sent the half-crown’s worth of stamps asked for. It doesn’t matter what I got in return. Anyhow, it was something that set my mind on betting, and I wrote again and again. At first his replies were of a distant and business sort; but in a month or so after I had written to him to complain of being misguided by him, he wrote back a friendly note to say that he wasn’t at all surprised to hear of my little failures—novices always did fail. They absurdly attempt what they did not understand. ‘Just to show you the difference,’ said he, ‘just give me a commission to invest a pound for you on the Ascot Cup. All that I charge is seven and a half per cent on winnings. Try it just for once; a pound won’t break you, and it may open your eyes to the way that fortunes are made.’ I ought to have known then, that either he, or somebody in London he had set on, had been making inquiries about me, for the other notes were sent to where mine were directed from—my private lodgings—but this one came to me at the warehouse.
“Well, I sent the pound, and within a week received a post-office order for four pounds eight as the result of its investment. The same week I bet again—two pounds this time—and won one pound fifteen. That was over six pounds between Monday and Saturday. ‘This is the way that fortunes are made,’ I laughed to myself, like a fool.