But, in a lame sort of way, he found justification for the act. He would not accept the brand; fate and bad luck were to blame, not he. He took the money with the firm intention of replacing it, and with the conviction (by what sophistry gained, heaven only knows) that he would be able to do so; and he gave himself credit for his intention, as if it were an act performed. With part of the money he had backed horses to win a heavy stake, but his usual bad luck pursued him; in his vernacular, one horse was "pulled," another was "scratched" an hour before the race, and others went wrong in all sorts of ways. But his heaviest stroke of bad luck, and one which almost maddened him at the time of its occurrence, was the disqualifying of a horse he had backed after it had actually won the race. This took place on a suburban race-course, where probably the finest collection in the world of blacklegs, thieves, and swindlers may be seen by any one interested in the species. It may be accepted as a fact, that nearly every person who goes there, goes with the intention of "getting the best" of his neighbour, if he can possibly manage it; and Alfred was not one of the exceptions that proved the rule. His moral consciousness was as spotted as the morality of those he elbowed. There were men who backed the favourites, who backed the jockeys' mounts, who backed the stable (whichever one it might be), who backed their fancy, who backed the owners, who backed the issue of famous sires, who backed the prophets' selections, and who laid out their money in accordance with a system. Many of them had private information of such-and-such horses, and knew for a certainty that they must win--some from superior excellence of their own, some because their opponents were not going to try. Men of straw most of them; miserable crawlers through the crooked ways of life, striving to reach the heaven of their hopes by means of any species of roguery; who will look their friends in the face, and lie deliberately; who take the name of God in vain a dozen times an hour; whose hands and tongues are ready at any moment to filch and profane; and in whose minds the noblest qualities of human nature are but themes for ribald jest. I who write these words am no purist; I am no more moral than my neighbours, I daresay; and I love pleasure as well as I love work. Temptations beset us all, at times, and not one of us is strong enough always to resist. I, as well as you, have occasion to be sorry, and would, if I could, live over again some of the time that is past, and would strive to avoid slipping. I have deceived myself often, and have given myself credit for things which have resulted from no merit that I possess. But I do not deceive myself when I say that I have a hearty contempt for roguery and meanness, and that I have a horror of blasphemy and the profaning of human and divine things. And, as at no open gatherings in the wide world can so much roguery and knavery be