Loo was not permitted because it was too much of a gambling game. The Ashford Club assumed a virtue they did not possess. Members might bet a thousand pounds on the odd trick at whist, but they must not play Loo. It was here that Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs made most of his money, and there was every reason to fear that Richard Tallant was not above helping him. The spirit of gambling had fairly taken possession of Richard’s mind, and he sank with it into the practice of all sorts of vices. In the City Mr. Richard Tallant was known as a young, wealthy, devil-may-care fellow, a man to know, and a man to fear. He often speculated largely, unknown to his father, and had more than once “rigged” the share market to great advantage. His position gave him excellent opportunities to obtain information which was of financial value, and Shuffleton Gibbs was deep enough to put his friend up to all sorts of stock-jobbing tricks that often turned him in good round sums of money. One would have thought that this legalised gambling would have been sufficient for Mr. Tallant and his friend Gibbs; but Gibbs was an old card-sharper; he loved the fierce excitement of the table, and there was more certain success in a doctored card and a loaded dice than in stock-jobbing. You see we don’t at all disguise Mr. Gibbs’s character; he was a thorough-paced blackguard, and Mr. Richard Tallant was graduating very successfully in the Blackguard school. At present he is not aware that Gibbs is indebted to anything but skill for his success at cards: he has never seen the disgraced Oxford _roué’s_ private room. Paul Somerton’s inquiries had not led him to a knowledge of all that we have here set down; but in less than a month he had come to the conclusion that Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs was a scoundrel, and that Mr. Richard Tallant was not conducting himself in a manner calculated to uphold the honour of his father’s name. And young Hammerton, the heir to the earldom of Verner: no good could come of his association with Mr. Gibbs and Tallant junior. How persistent Amy was in her inquiries about Mr. Hammerton! “I can’t see why you be so anxious to know all about their goings on,” said Mr. Thomas Dibble, in one of their once-a-week perambulations. “Well, never mind, old boy,” said Paul; “you and I are good friends and always will be. Why cannot we have our little confidences like other people?” “No reason at all,” said Dibble, looking round at a baked-potato stove. “Have a potato?” said Paul, stopping his friend forcibly as they were turning into Piccadilly. Mr. Dibble stared at him to see if he were in earnest. “All right, old boy; I know you like them; have one, don’t mind me.” Dibble instantly complied with Paul’s request, and was soon engaged in devouring the mealy esculent. In a few minutes he said, as well as he could speak with a mouthful of the baked temptation,--