“Do not mistake me. I hope nothing from your hundred dollars; indeed, fifty will answer. I propose to employ it only as a pretext. I expect to lose it, and lose it this very night. But it will give me an opportunity to ascertain what I have suspected--too late, indeed, to save myself--that I have been the victim of false dice and figured cards. You say you will let me have the money--will you go with me--Will you see me through?” 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?”