In my old simpler days, I well recall those defences of the pure gambler wherein my regard indulged. Elia once separated humanity into two tribes--those who borrow and those who lend. In my younger philosophy I also saw two septs: those who lose and those who win. To me all men were gamblers. Life itself was one continuous game of chance; and the stakes, that shelter and raiment and food and drink to compose the body’s bulwark against an instant conquest by Death. Of the inherent morality of gambling I nurtured no doubts. Or, at the worst, I felt certain of its comparative morality when laid beside such commerces as banks and markets and fields of plain barter and sale. There is no trade (I said) save that of the hands which is held by the tether of any honesty. The carpenter sawing boards, the smith who beats out a horseshoe, the mason busy with trowel and mortar on sun-blistered scaffolds, hoarsely shouting “More bricks!” they in their way of life are honest. They are bound to integrity because they couldn’t cheat if they would. But is the merchant selling the false for the real--the shoddy for the true--is the merchant whose advertisements are as so many false pretences paid for by the line--is he more honest than the one who cheats with cards? Is the lawyer looking looks of wisdom to hide the emptiness of his ignorance? Is the doctor, profound of mien, who shakes portentous head, medicining a victim not because he has a malady but because he has a million dollars? And if it become a question of fashion, why then, age in and age out, the gambler has been often noble and sometimes royal. In the days of the Stuarts, or later among the dull ones of Hanover, was it the peasant or the prince who wagered his gold at cards? Why man! every royal court was a gambling house; every king, save one--and he disloved and at the last insane--a gambler. Are not two-thirds of the homes of our American nobility--our folk of millions and Fifth Avenue--replete of faro and roulette and the very hotbed of a poisonous bridge whist? Fy, man, fy! you who denounce gambling but preach your own plebeianism--proclaim your own vulgarity! The gambler has been ever the patrician.