“Well, he kept me going, I don’t exactly recollect how, between Ascot and Goodwood, which is about seven weeks, not more. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but, on the whole, I was in pocket. I was such a fool at last, that I was always for betting more than he advised. I’ve got his letters at home now, in which he says, ‘Pray don’t be rash; take my advice, and bear in mind that great risks mean great losses, as well as great gains, at times.’ Quite fatherly, you know! The infernal scoundrel!
“Well, one day there came a telegram to the office for me. I was just in from my dinner. It was from B—y. ‘Now you may bag a hundred pounds at a shot,’ said he. ‘The odds are short, but the result certain. Never mind the money just now. You are a gentleman, and I will trust you. You know that my motto has all along been ‘Caution.’ Now it is ‘Go in and win.’ It is sure. Send me a word immediately, or it may be too late; and, if you are wise, put a ‘lump’ on it.’
“That was the infernal document—the death-warrant of all my good prospects. It was the rascal’s candour that deceived me. He had all along said, ‘Be cautious, don’t be impatient to launch out;’ and now this patient careful villain saw his chance, and advised, ‘Go in and win.’ I was quite in a maze at the prospect of bagging a hundred pounds. To win that sum the odds were so short on the horse he mentioned, that fifty pounds had to be risked. But he said that there was no risk, and I believed him. I sent him back a telegram at once to execute the commission.
“The horse lost. I knew it next morning before I was up, for I had sent for the newspaper; and while I was in the midst of my fright, up comes my landlady to say that a gentleman of the name of B—y wished to see me.
“I had never seen him before, and he seemed an easy fellow enough. He was in a terrible way—chiefly on my account—though the Lord only knew how much he had lost over the ‘sell.’ He had come up by express purely to relieve my anxiety, knowing how ‘funky’ young gentlemen sometimes were over such trifles. Although he had really paid the fifty in hard gold out of his pocket, he was in no hurry for it. He would take my bill at two months. It would be all right, no doubt. He had conceived a liking for me, merely from my straightforward way of writing. Now that he had had the pleasure of seeing me, he shouldn’t trouble himself a fig if the fifty that I owed him was five hundred.
“I declare to you that I knew so little about bills, that I didn’t know how to draw one out; but I was mighty glad to be shown the way and to give it him, and thank him over and over again for his kindness. That was the beginning of my going to the devil. If I hadn’t been a fool, I might have saved myself even then, for I had friends who would have lent or given me twice fifty pounds if I had asked them for it. But I was a fool. In the course of a day or two I got a note from B—y, reminding me that the way out of the difficulty was by the same path as I had got into one, and that a little judicious ‘backing’ would set me right before even my bill fell due. And I was fool enough to walk into the snare. I wouldn’t borrow to pay the fifty pounds, but I borrowed left and right, of my mother, of my brothers, on all manner of lying pretences, to follow the ‘advice’ B—y was constantly sending me. When I came to the end of their forbearance, I did more than borrow; but that we won’t speak of. In five months from the beginning, I was without a relative who would own me or speak to me, and without an employer—cracked up, ruined. And there’s B—y, as I said before, with his white hat cocked on one side of his head, and his gold toothpick, chaffing me about my old boots. What do I do for a living? Well, I’ve told you such a precious lot, I may as well tell you that too. Where I lodge it’s a ‘leaving-shop,’ and the old woman that keeps it can’t read or write, and I keep her ‘book’ for her. That’s how I get a bit of breakfast and supper and a bed to lie on.”
[Since the above was written, the police, under the energetic guidance of their new chief, have been making vigorous and successful warfare against public gamblers and gambling agents. The “spec” dodge has been annihilated, “betting-shops” have been entered and routed, and there is even fair promise that the worst feature of the bad business, that which takes refuge behind the specious cloak of the “commission-agent,” may be put down. That it may be so, should be the earnest wish of all right-thinking men, who would break down this barrier of modern and monstrous growth, that blocks the advancement of social purity, and causes perhaps more ruin and irreparable dismay than any other two of the Curses herein treated of.]
VII.—Waste of Charity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
METROPOLITAN PAUPERISM.
Parochial Statistics—The Public hold the Purse-strings—Cannot the Agencies actually at work be made to yield greater results?—The Need of fair Rating—The heart and core of the Poor-law Difficulty—My foremost thought when I was a “Casual”—Who are most liable to slip?—“Crank-work”—The Utility of Labour-yards—Scales of Relief—What comes of breaking-up a Home.