"Oh!" said Sam, "then I thinks you'll be sucked in! The chances are, Mr. Orkins, you won't see him at all. Why, sir, you don't know how them chaps carries on their business. Would you believe it, Mr. Orkins, a gennelman comes to me, and he ses, 'Sam,' he ses, 'I want to find a little pet dawg as belonged to a lidy'--which was his wife, in course--and he ses the lidy was nearly out of her mind. 'Well,' I ses, 'sir, to be 'onest with you, don't you mention that there fact to anybody but me'--because when a lidy goes out of her mind over a lorst dawg up goes the price, and you can't calculate bank-rate, as they ses. The price'll go up fablous, Mr. Orkins; there's nothin' rules the market like that there. Well, at last I agrees to do my best for the gent, and he says, just as you might say, Mr. Orkins, just now, 'When can she have him?' Well, I told him the time; but what a innercent question, Mr. Orkins! 'Why not before?' says he, with a kind of a angry voice, like yours just now, sir. 'Why, sir,' I ses, 'these people as finds dawgs 'ave their feelins as well as losers 'as theirs, and sometimes when they can't find the owner, they sells the animal.' Well, they sold this gennelman's animal to a major, and the reason why he couldn't be had for a little while was that the major, being fond on him, and 'avin' paid a good price for the dawg, it would ha' been cruel if he did not let him have the pleasure of him like for a few days--or a week." Sam and I parted the best of friends, and, I need not say, on the best of terms I could get. I knew him for many years after this incident, and say to his credit that, although he was sometimes hard with customers, he acted, from all one ever heard, strictly in accordance with the bargain he made, whatever it might be; and what is more singular than all, I never heard of old Sam Linton getting into trouble. CHAPTER X. WHY I GAVE OVER CARD-PLAYING. Like most men who are not saints, I had the natural instinct for gambling, without any passion for it; but soon found the necessity for suppressing my inclination for cards, lest it should interfere with my legitimate profession. It was necessary to abandon the indulgence, or abandon myself to its temptations. I owe my determination never to play again at cards to the bad luck which befell me on a particular occasion at Ascot on the Cup Day of the year 18--. I was at that time struggling to make my way in my profession, and carefully storing up my little savings for the proverbial rainy day. Having been previously to the Epsom summer races, and had such extraordinary good luck, nothing but a severe reverse would have induced me to take the step I did. Good luck is fascinating, and invariably leads us on, with bad luck sometimes close behind.