“Then,” continued Blunt, applying his knife to one of the monkey’s eyes, “there arises the question—how far is this intellectual blindness the result of incapacity of intellectual vision, or of averted gaze, or of the wilful shutting of the intellectual eyelids?”
“Well, well, Tom, let that question alone for the present. Let us come to the point, for I wish to have my mind cleared up on the subject. You hold that gambling is wrong—essentially wrong.”
“I do; but let us not have a misunderstanding at the very beginning,” said Blunt. “By gambling I do not mean the playing of games. That is not gambling. What I understand by gambling is betting on games—or on anything—and the playing of games for the purpose of winning money, or anything that possesses value, great or small. Such gambling I hold to be wrong—essentially, morally, absolutely wrong, without one particle of right or good in it whatever.”
As he spoke Blunt became slightly more earnest in tone, and less devoted to the monkey.
“Well, now, Tom, do you know I don’t see that.”
“If you did see it, my dear fellow,” returned Blunt, resuming his airy tone, “our discussion of the subject would be useless.”
“Well, then, I can’t see it to be wrong. Here are you and I. We want to have a game of billiards. It is uninteresting to play even billiards for nothing; but we each have a little money, and choose to risk a small sum. Our object is not gain, therefore we play for merely sixpenny points. We both agree to risk that sum. If I lose, all right. If you lose, all right. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“No; it is undoubtedly equal, but not necessarily fair. Fair means ‘free from blemish,’ ‘pure,’ in other words, right. Two thieves may make a perfectly fair division of spoil; but the fairness of the division does not make their conduct fair or right. Neither of them is entitled to divide their gains at all. Their agreeing to do so does not make it fair.”
“Agreed, Tom, as regards thieves; but you and I are not thieves. We propose to act with that which is our own. We mutually agree to run the risk of loss, and to take our chance of gain. We have a right to do as we choose with our own. Is not that fair?”
“You pour out so many fallacies and half truths, Dick, that it is not easy to answer you right off.”