"Give it up, Roger," he said in a sneering kind of way; "Trevanion can't stand bad luck, lad."
This wounded my pride. "Trevanion can stand as much as I care to let it stand," I replied, and I laid my last guinea on the table.
Presently Mr. Hendy, the old family lawyer, came to my side.
"Be careful, Mr. Trevanion," he whispered, "this is no time for ducks and drakes."
But I answered him with an oath, for I was in no humour to be corrected. Besides, wild and lawless as I had been for several years, I remembered that I was a Trevanion, and resented the family attorney daring to try to check me in public.
"He won't listen to reason, Hendy," sneered old Peter Trevisa. "Ah, these young men! Hot blood, Hendy, hot blood; we can't stop a Trevanion."
I had now lost all my money, but I would not stop. Old Trevisa standing at my elbow offering sage advice maddened me. I blurted out what at another time I would not have had mentioned on any consideration.
"You have a stake in Trevanion, Trevisa," I cried angrily.
"Nonsense, nonsense, Roger," whispered the old man, yet so loudly that all could hear.
"You have," I cried, "you know you have. If I paid you all you lent my father, there would be little left. How much would the remnant be?"