“I’m not so sure of that, Dick. You have heard gambling talked of as a disease.”
“Yes, but I don’t believe it is.”
“Do you believe that a miser is a morally diseased man?”
“Well, perhaps he is,” returned Sharp; “but a gambler is not necessarily a miser.”
“Yet the two have some symptoms of this moral disease in common. The miser is sometimes rich, nevertheless the covetous spirit is so strong in him that he gloats over a sixpence, has profound interest in gaining it, and mourns over it if lost. You, being well off with a rich and liberal father, yet declare that the interest of a game is much decreased if there are no stakes on it.”
“The cases are not parallel.”
“I did not say they were, but you must admit—indeed you have admitted—that you have one symptom of this disease in common with the miser.”
“What disease?”
“The love of money.”
Richard Sharp burst into a laugh at this, a good-humoured laugh in which there was more of amusement than annoyance.