“I don’t see it to be so,” returned Jack. “If I am willing to stake my money on a chance of black or red turning up, and the banker is willing to take his chance, why should we not do it? the chances are equal; both willing to win or to lose, nothing dishonourable in that! Or, if I bet with you and you bet with me, we both agree to accept the consequences, having a right, of course, to do what we please with our own.”
“Now, Jack,” said Wilkins, “I’m not going to set up for a little preacher, or attempt to argue with a big philosopher, but I’ll tell you what my father has impressed on me about this matter. One day, when we were passing some ragged boys playing pitch-and-toss on the street, he said to me, ‘Watty, my boy, no man should gamble, because it is dishonourable. To want money that does not belong to you is greedy. To try to get it from your neighbour without working for it is mean. To risk your money in the hope of increasing it by trade, or other fair means, and so benefit yourself and others, is right; but to risk it for nothing, with the certainty of impoverishing some one else if you win, or injuring yourself if you lose, is foolish and unfeeling. The fact that some one else is willing to bet with you, only proves that you have met with one as foolish and unfeeling as yourself, and the agreement of two unfeeling fools does not result in wisdom. You will hear it said, my boy, that a man has a right to do what he will with his own. That is not true. As far as the world at large is concerned, it is, indeed, partially true, but a man may only do what God allows with what He has lent him. He is strictly accountable to God for the spending of every penny. He is accountable, also, to his wife and his children, in a certain degree, ay, and to his tradesmen, if he owes them anything. Yes, Watty, gambling for money is dishonourable, believe me!’ Now, Jack, I did, and I do believe him, from the bottom of my heart.”
What Jack would have replied we cannot tell, for the conversation was interrupted at that moment by the abrupt appearance of Captain Samson. He led Polly by the hand. The child had an unwonted expression of sadness on her face.
“Come into the tent. Now then, darling,” said the captain; “sit on my knee, and tell me all about it. Polly has seen something in her rambles that has made her cry,” he explained to Jack, Wilkins, and the rest of the party who chanced to come in while he was speaking. “Let us hear about it.”
“Oh! it is so sad,” said Polly, whimpering. “You know that good kind man Jacob Buckley, who lives up in Redman’s Gap with his sick brother Daniel, who is so fond of me; well, I went up to the Gap this afternoon, when I had done cleaning up, to sit with the sick brother for a little. I found him in great anxiety and very ill. He told me that Jacob, who had always been such a good nurse to him, is much cast down by his bad luck, and has taken to drink, and that he has lost or spent all his money, and can’t get credit at the store. He went out quite drunk last night, and has not returned since. Of course poor Daniel has had nothing to eat, for he can’t leave his bed without help, and even if he could, there isn’t a morsel of food in the house.”
This story created much sympathy in the hearts of Polly’s hearers.
“Well now, messmates, what’s to be done in this case?” asked Captain Samson, looking round.
“Make a c’lection,” said O’Rook.
“Here you are,” said Watty, taking up his cap and dropping several small nuggets into it as he handed it to Jack.
The philosopher contributed a pretty large nugget, which, in his heart, he had intended to stake at the gaming-table. “Well,” said he, “we are reduced to low enough circumstances just now, but we are rich compared with poor Buckley.”