"Well, where would you like to go? A young fellow like you really ought to know something of the world he lives in. You are clever enough, in all conscience, if you only knew a little more." "Go on, then. I don't care. It's nothing to me where I go. Only," Tom added, "I have no money in my pocket. I spent my last shilling on this copy of Goethe's poems." "Ah, you never spent your money better! There was a man, now, that never contented himself with hearsay! He would know all the ways of life for himself--else how was he to judge of them all? He would taste of everything, that he might know the taste of it. Why should a man be ignorant of anything that can be known. Come along. I will take care of you. See if I don't!" "But you can't be going anywhere in London for nothing. And I tell you I haven't got a farthing in my purse." "Never mind that. It shan't cost you anything. Now I am going to make a clean breast of it, as you English call it; though why there should be anything dirty in keeping your own secrets I don't know. I want to make an experiment with you." "Give me chloroform, and cut me up?" said Tom, reviving as his quarrel with Lucy withdrew a little into the background. "Not quite that. You shall neither take chloroform, nor have your eyes bandaged, nor be tied to the table. You can go the moment you have had enough of it. It is merely for the sake of my theory. Entirely an experiment." "Perhaps, if you told me your theory, I might judge of the nature of the experiment." "I told you all about it the other day. You are one of those fortunate mortals doomed to be lucky. Why, I knew one--not a gambler, I don't mean that--whose friends at last would have nothing to do with him where any chance was concerned. If it was only sixpenny points, they wouldn't play a single rubber of whist with him except he was their partner. In fact, the poor wretch was reduced to play only with strangers,--comparative strangers I mean, of course. He won everything." "Then what do you want with me? Out with it." "I only want to back you. You don't understand the thing. You shan't spend a farthing. I have plenty." Here Molken pulled a few sovereigns from his pocket as he went on, and it never occurred to Tom to ask how he had them, seeing he was so hard-up at dinner-time. "It's all for my theory of luck, I assure you. I have given up practical gambling, as I told you, long ago. It's not right. I _have_ known enough about it, I confess to you--you know _we_ understand each other; but I confess too--my theory--I _am_ anxious about that." All this time they had been walking along, Thomas paying no heed to the way they went. He would have known little about it, however, well as he thought he knew London, for they had entered a region entirely unknown to him. "But you haven't told me, after all," he said, "where you are going." "Here," answered Molken, pushing open the swing-door of a public-house. * * * * *