"Of course. You are too green to cope with the sharpers that infest those boats. Haven't I forbidden you to play?"
"There was nothing else to do."
"You appear to pay very slight regard to my commands. In return I shall allow you to know what it is to be penniless for a time."
"Won't you give me any money, father?"
"No, I won't."
Jasper looked dark and sullen. He was an utterly spoiled boy, if one can be called spoiled, who had so few good qualities which admitted of being spoiled. He inherited his father's bad traits, his selfishness and unscrupulousness, in addition to a spirit of deceitfulness and hypocrisy from his mother's nature. He was not as censurable as he would have been had he not possessed these bad tendencies.
He finished his breakfast and went out.
"That's a model son to have—a son to be proud of," soliloquized his father. "He is already a gambler, a liar, and cares for me only as I have it in my power to promote his selfish ends. I have let him grow up like an evil weed, and I am afraid he will some day disgrace me."
Though himself unscrupulous and bad, Mr. Grey would have been glad to have his son better than himself. In his secret heart he felt the superiority of Gilbert to his cousin. Yet Jasper, with all his faults, was his son, and the wily father schemed to secure to him the property which belonged to his nephew.
He was interrupted by the entrance of a colored servant.