He extended his hand as he spoke, I grasped it. He shook it with a hearty feeling, while a bright smile almost, dissipated the cloud from his face.
“You are a man, Clifford; and now, would you believe it, our excellent, immaculate young friend, Mr. William Edgerton, refused me this money.”
“Strange! Edgerton is not selfish—he is not mean! From THAT vice he is certainly free.”
“By G-d, I don't know that! He refused me the money; refused to go with me. I saw him at eight o'clock, at his own room, where he was rigging himself out for some d—-d tea-drinking; told him my straits, my losses, my object and all; and what was his plea, think you? Why, he disapproved of gambling; couldn't think of lending me a sixpence for any such purpose; and, as for going into such a suspected quarter as a gambling-house—wouldn't do it for the world! Was there ever such a puritan—such a humbug!”
I did William Edgerton only justice in my reply;—
“I've no doubt, Kingsley, that such are his real principles. He would have lent you thrice the money, freely, had not your object been avowed.”
“But what a devil sort of despotism is that! Can't a friend get drunk, or game, or swagger? may he not depart from the highway, and sidle into an alley, without souring his friend's temper and making him stingy? I don't understand it at all. I'm glad, at least, to find you are of another sort of stuff.”
“Nay, Kingsley, I will lend you the money—go with you, as you desire; but, understand me, I do not, no more than Edgerton, approve of this gambling.”
“Tut, tut! I don't want you to preach, though I could hear you with a devilish sight better temper than him. There's a hundred things that one's friend don't approve of, but shall he desert him for all that? Leave him to be plucked, and kicked, and abandoned; and, moralizing, with a grin over his fain, say, 'I told you so!' No! no! Give me the fellow that'll stand by me—keep me out of evil, if he can, but stand by me, nevertheless, at all events; and not suffer me to be swallowed up at the last moment, when an outstretched finger might save!”
“But, am I to think, Kingsley, that my help can do this?”