'What card do you chuse?—The knave of hearts?—There it is!' [He shewed it, with a flirt of the cards, at the bottom of the pack.] His brother of diamonds?—Look! You have it!—Of spades?—Presto! It is here! You have three knaves on your side, you see. I will keep the fourth, and drive you out of the field—Come, for twenty?'
'I see your aim, and am devilishly tempted to shew you that you are not half so cunning as you think yourself.'
'I know you are: but you dare not. You cannot shake off your fears. The wit, the metaphysician, the young senator suspects he is only a half-fledged bird.'
'Cut for deal, sir.'
'Why, will you venture?—The nine.'
The sudden recollection of Mr. Evelyn, the money I had received from him, the generous confidence he had reposed in me, and the guilt of daring to abuse that confidence, fortunately seized me with a kind of horror. I snatched up the cards, dashed them in the fire, and in a moment recovering myself said—'You shall find, sir, that, whether I can or cannot master you, I can master myself'
'Come, you do not go out of this room without the chance of losing twenty guineas for twenty.'
'Done!' answered I, impetuously: which he in an instant echoed with Done! Done! and, again bursting into laughter, held out his hand and bade me pay my losings.
I immediately discovered, without his explanation, that he had entrapped me, by the equivocal sense of the word chance; and I drew out my purse to pay him, with a strong feeling of indignation that I should be so caught.
However, as it was not his intention to profit by so bald and barefaced a quirk, he only laughed; and exclaimed—'How much the young gentleman is his own master! But I will not pick your pocket. If at any time I should want twenty pounds, I shall have a fair claim to ask it as a loan.'