"Report it then if you choose; don't you see I'm trying to win enough to pay that d——d debt of mine?"
"How much have you won already?"
"One hundred and eleven dollars."
"One hundred and eleven dollars! well, boys, you must be staking your salaries to-night, I should think; but, come, Arthur, if you have won that much, stop now; for you won't win much longer, and if you'll give up this kind of business, I'll make up the rest for you, and your debt shall be canceled. Come, I can't bear to see a young man of your abilities, and one who has a mother with a heart to break, beginning this practice. It's awful!"
At any other moment an appeal of this kind might have touched Arthur's heart; but he had drained his wine cup several times, and the exciting draughts had already ex
erted their powerful influence over his young frame to a degree which rendered him deaf to everything beyond the prospect of regaining that sum which he had so unluckily, as he declared, lost.
"You are altogether too good, Mr. Wilkins, but I don't need any assistance when I am prospering as I now am."
"That's right, Pratt!" exclaimed Quirk, with an encouraging wink; "pick up your cards, and show 'em you ain't to be nosed around by anybody, and that you didn't come so many hundred miles from home tied fast by your mammy's long apron-string."
"Had I known this was your intention, Mr. Quirk, when you asked me for the key, you would never have got it I assure you," said Wilkins, coldly. "Isn't it enough for you to be bad and unprincipled, without dragging those who might do better, if let alone, with you into the pit?"
"'Taint my fault if he can't resist temptation," replied the other, doggedly. "Come, Pratt, it's your play."