"One day at Pershore Fair, in a booth, the clown jumped on to the boards and introduced himself," continued Mr. Brandon: "'I'm the clown, ladies and gentlemen,' said he. That's the Honourable Mr. Crayton, say you.--And so you have gone in with Mr. Crayton and the Pells!" "And with Joseph Todhetley." "Ay. And perhaps London will do him more harm than it will you; you're not much better than a boy yet, hardly up to bad things. I wonder what possessed Joe's father to let you two come up to stay with the Pells! I should have been above it in his place." "Above it? Why, Mr. Brandon, they live in ten times the style we do." "And spend twenty times as much over it. Who was thinking about style or cost, Mr. Johnny? Don't you mistake Richard for Robert." He gave a flick to the newspaper, and stared me full in the face. I did not venture to speak. "Johnny Ludlow, I don't like your having been initiated into the iniquities of fast life--as met with in billiard-rooms, and similar places." "I have got no harm from them, sir." "Perhaps not. But you might have got it." I supposed I might: and thought of Tod and his losings. "You have good principles, Johnny Ludlow, and you've a bit of sense in your head; and you have been taught to know that this world is not the end of things. Temptation is bad for the best, though. When I saw you in that place last night, looking on with eager eyes at the balls, listening to the betting, I wished I had never let your father make me your guardian." "I did not know my eyes or ears were so eager, sir. I don't think they were." "Nonsense, boy: that goes as a matter of course. You have heard of gambling hells?" "Yes, sir." "Well, a public billiard-room is not many degrees better. It is crowded with adventurers who live by their wits. Your needy 'honourables,' who've not a sixpence of their own in their purses, and your low-lived blackguards, who have sprung from the scum of the population, are equally at home there. These men, the lord's son and the blackguard, must each make a living: whether by turf-betting, or dice, or cards, or pool--they must do it somehow. Is it a nice thing, pray, for you honest young fellows to frequent places where you must be their boon companions?" "No, I don't think it is." "Good, Johnny. Don't you go into one again--and keep young Todhetley out if you can. It is no place, I say, for an honest man and a gentleman: you can't touch pitch and not be defiled; neither can a youngster frequent these billiard-rooms and the company he meets in them, and come away unscathed. His name will get a mark against it. That's not the worst: his _soul_ may get a mark upon it; and never be able to throw it off again during life. You turn mountebank, and dance at wakes, Johnny, rather than turn public billiard player. There's many an honest mountebank, dancing for the daily crust he puts into his mouth: I don't believe you'd find one honest man amongst billiard sharpers."