Had a little time been allowed him all would have been paid; and all had been paid. He knew that by the rules of such institutions time could not be granted; but still he did not feel himself to have been a dishonest man. Yet he had been so disgraced that he could hardly venture to walk about the streets of London in the daylight. And then there came upon him, when he found himself alone at Tretton, an irrepressible desire for gambling. It was as though his throat were parched with an implacable thirst. He walked about ever meditating certain fortunate turns of the cards; and when he had worked himself up to some realization of his old excitement he would remember that it was all a vain and empty bubble. He had money in his pocket, and could rush up to London if he would, and if he did so he could, no doubt, find some coarse hell at which he could stake it till it would be all gone; but the gates of the A---- and the B---- and the C---- would be closed against him; and he would then be driven to feel that he had indeed fallen into the nethermost pit. Were he once to play at such places as his mind painted to him he could never play at any other; and yet when the day drew nigh on which he was to go to London, on his way to Buston, he did bethink himself where these places were to be found. His throat was parched, and the thirst upon him was extreme. Cards were the weapons he had used. He had played ecarte, piquet, whist, and baccarat, with an occasional night of some foolish game such as cribbage or vingt-et-un. Though he had always lost, he had always played with men who had played honestly. There is much that is, in truth, dishonest even in honest play. A man who can keep himself sober after dinner plays with one who flusters himself with drink. The man with a trained memory plays with him who cannot remember a card. The cool man plays with the impetuous; the man who can hold his tongue with him who cannot but talk; the man whose practised face will tell no secrets with him who loses a point every rubber by his uncontrolled grimaces. And then there is the man who knows the game, and plays with him who knows it not at all. Of course, the cool, the collected, the thoughtful, the practised,--they who have given up their whole souls to the study of cards,--will play at a great advantage, which in their calculations they do not fail to recognize. See the man standing by and watching the table, and leaving all the bets he can on A and B as against C and D; and, however ignorant you may be, you will soon become sure that A and B know the game, whereas C and D are simply infants. That is all fair and acknowledged; but looking at it from a distance, as you lie under your apple-trees in your orchard, far from the shout of "Two by honors," you will come to doubt the honesty of making your income after such a fashion.