"I've always been taught that men gamble with cards, and that gambling is very wicked and disgraceful, quite as bad as getting drunk." "Pooh! you're a muff!" "I'd rather be a muff than a gambler, any day," returned Max with spirit. "Pshaw! 'tisn't gambling, unless you play for money, and I haven't asked you to do that, and don't propose to. Come now, take a hand," urged Ralph persuasively. "There isn't a bit more harm in it than in a game of ball." "But I don't know how," objected Max. "I'll teach you," said Ralph. "You'll soon learn and will find it good sport." At length Max yielded, though not without some qualms of conscience which he tried to quiet by saying to himself, "Papa never said I shouldn't play in this way; only that gambling was very wicked, and I must never go where it was done." "Have a cigar?" said Ralph, producing two, handing one to Max, and proceeding to light the other. "You smoke, of course; every gentleman does." Max never had, and did not care to, but was so foolish as to be ashamed to refuse after that last remark of Ralph's; beside having seen his father smoke a cigar occasionally, he thought there could be no harm in it. "Thank you, I don't care if I do," he said, and was soon puffing away as if quite accustomed to it. But it was not many minutes before he began to feel sick and faint, then to find himself trembling and growing giddy. He tried to conceal his sensations, and fought against them as long as possible. But at length, finding he could endure it no longer, he threw the stump of the cigar into the fire, and rising, said, "I--I feel sick. I must get out into the air." He took a step forward, staggered, and would have fallen, if Ralph had not jumped up and caught him. "Here, I'll help you to the bed and open the window," he said. "Never smoked before? Well, don't be discouraged; I was deathly sick first time myself." "I'm half blind and awfully sick," groaned Max, as he stretched himself on the bed. "Does it last long? can a fellow get over it without taking any medicine?" "Oh, yes; you'll be all right after a little." But Max was not all right when a servant came to the door to say that he was wanted down-stairs, as the party from Ion were about to return home. "Think you can get down with the help of my arm?" asked Ralph. "Don't b'lieve he kin, Marse Ralph," remarked the servant, gazing earnestly at Max. "What's de mattah wid de young gentleman? He's white as de wall, and his eyes looks like glass." "Hush, Sam! you'll frighten him," whispered Ralph. "Run down and ask my brother Arthur to come up. Don't let anybody else hear you." Max had tried to rise, but only to fall back again sicker than ever. "Oh, but I'm sick, and how my heart beats!" he said. "I can't possibly sit up, much less walk down-stairs. What will Mamma Vi and the rest say? I'm afraid Grandpa Dinsmore will be very angry with me."