"I was unlucky at the start. I was the second son of a Pharisee, provincial but respectable. So I suffered from the amiable custom of primogeniture. My brother Jerry, two years only my senior, received a home and lands and a thousand pounds a year. He did not receive over much in the way of brains. I, in this latter respect, received, perhaps, more than my share, with senses to match. With such gifts, and some five hundred pounds all told, I was pushed off to sink or swim. I just kept afloat. First of all I lost all my money in a most determined--and, I think, thoroughly well conceived--attempt to double it on the card-table. It was pure misfortune that it proved inferior in practice. I was obliged then to borrow from Jerry. He was a stay-at-home ass. I did not approve of his way of life at all; but I had no option but to borrow from him. Again misfortune dogged me, for somehow or other--it passes my recollection now--I got into trouble about somebody else's name on a cheque. I remember those concerned made a great fuss about it, altogether out of proportion to the circumstances; and I remember distinctly how disgusted I was at the puritanical island upon which it was my lot to be cast, so I decided to leave it. For some time after that I lived on the Continent--upon my wits, which were duly sharpened in the process. It was hard that this should prove to my disadvantage, but it did, for at Baden-Baden my misfortune culminated in a row at the tables. I was utterly disgusted, but it was wiser that I should leave so I dropped South over the Equator and turned up at the Cape in a new character, and with a brand new name. Those were prehistoric days, and the South African millionaire had not yet invented himself. The Boers disapproved of my more civilized ways with the ace, and, as I could not repress my repugnance for their psalm-singing barbarisms, I could not make myself at home there. It seemed as if a resting-place was ever to be denied me. But I plucked up courage, and in a rackety ocean tramp, carrying a cargo of rats and cockroaches, I sailed for Bombay. I had a very few pounds, but no little experience. Arrived there, I was obliged to make my living somehow. It was a hand-to-mouth existence, and I saw no prospect before me. I had a certain amount of luck with my dice, though on one or two occasions aspersions were cast upon their equilibrium. 'Give a dog a bad name, and hang him!' seemed to hold good even here. I was driven North. Then, Heaven knows why, Fortune gave me her hand for once and led me to Kikat, the kingdom of one Rao Singha.