"One hundred and eleven dollars! well, boys, you must be staking your salaries to-night, I should think; but, come, Arthur, if you have won that much, stop now; for you won't win much longer, and if you'll give up this kind of business, I'll make up the rest for you, and your debt shall be canceled. Come, I can't bear to see a young man of your abilities, and one who has a mother with a heart to break, beginning this practice. It's awful!" At any other moment an appeal of this kind might have touched Arthur's heart; but he had drained his wine cup several times, and the exciting draughts had already exerted their powerful influence over his young frame to a degree which rendered him deaf to everything beyond the prospect of regaining that sum which he had so unluckily, as he declared, lost. "You are altogether too good, Mr. Wilkins, but I don't need any assistance when I am prospering as I now am." "That's right, Pratt!" exclaimed Quirk, with an encouraging wink; "pick up your cards, and show 'em you ain't to be nosed around by anybody, and that you didn't come so many hundred miles from home tied fast by your mammy's long apron-string." "Had I known this was your intention, Mr. Quirk, when you asked me for the key, you would never have got it I assure you," said Wilkins, coldly. "Isn't it enough for you to be bad and unprincipled, without dragging those who might do better, if let alone, with you into the pit?" "'Taint my fault if he can't resist temptation," replied the other, doggedly. "Come, Pratt, it's your play." "Arthur, don't throw another card!" exclaimed Wilkins, at the same time arresting the uplifted hand. Arthur struggled to release it, but Wilkins held it firmly, and drew him back from the table as he sat in his chair, and held him fixedly there in his grasp. "Arthur, I treat you as I would a younger brother; an eye experienced in such matters shows me the danger you are in; stop now, in mercy to yourself and all who love you." "Release me, Mr. Wilkins; you have no right to act in this manner to me, sir." "Yes!" shouted Quirk, seizing an empty bottle with a dreadful imprecation, and levelling it at Wilkins' head, "release him this minute if you don't want this through your skull!" At this instant one of the other clerks caught sight of Guly, who had stood where he stopped, as if spell-bound, through all this scene. "Look there!" cried the young man, pointing toward the staircase, and dropping the cards he held. They all turned their heads and looked toward Guly, who seemed, standing there in his white robe, with the lamp elevated just in front of his forehead, not unlike some spiritual visitant bearing a star on his brow. The attention which had been called to him, seemed in a measure to rouse Guly, for he came on slowly down the stairs, but with his blue eyes open and fixed like one walking in his sleep.