"Look at these cards," he went on. "They are the cards you have been playing with, when you thought you had a new pack of club-cards. If they are not marked, I will ask the Major to change places with me."
They were marked.
"And now, gentlemen, I think I may ask Captain Ladds what he has lost, and invite him to take it out of that heap."
There was a murmur of assent.
"I lost twenty pounds in notes and gold," said Ladds. "And I gave an I O U for sixty more."
There were other I O U's in the heap, and more gold when Ladds had recovered his own. The paper was solemnly torn up, but the coin restored to the Major, who now stood, abject, white, and trembling, but with the look of a devil in his eyes.
"Such men as you, Major," said Gilead the Moralist, "are the curse of our country. You see, gentlemen, we travel about, we make money fast; we are sometimes a reckless lot; the miners have got pockets full; there's everything to encourage such a crew as Major Ruggles belonged to. And when we find them out, we lynch them.—Lynch is the word, isn't it, Major?—do you want to know the end of this man, gentlemen? I am not much in the prophetic line, but I think I see a crowd of men in a minin' city, and I see a thick branch with a rope over it. And at the end of that rope is Major Ruggles's neck, tightened in a most unpleasant and ungentlemanly manner.—It's inhospitable, but what can you expect, Major? We like play, but we like playin' on the square. Now, Major, you may go. And you may thank the Lord on your knees before you go to sleep that this providential interference has taken place in London instead of the States. For had I told my interestin' anecdote at a bar in any city of the Western States, run up you would have been. You may go, Major Ruggles; and I daresay Cap'en Ladds, in consideration of the damage done to those bright and shinin' store clothes of yours, will forego the British kicking which I see tremblin' at the point of his toes."
Ladds did forego that revenge, and the Major slunk away.
CHAPTER XXXII.
"Nulla fere causa est in qua non femina litem Moverit."