It would have been better for Paul Somerton had he resolved upon this when first he arrived in London. It was hardly wise for his sister to excite his curiosity to so high a pitch about the conduct of other people. Both of them suffered for their indiscretion--suffered in more ways than one. Amy’s object was, however, served in a measure; for the dangerous career of young Hammerton was cut short on this eventful night of Paul’s resolve to mind his own business in future, though it would have been better for the honourable gentleman had the conclusion of his gaming experiences been less demonstrative than it was. When Paul left him, he joined the little party at the Ashford Club, determined not to entertain suspicions which for the moment had been strongly aroused. This was the night when the pigeon was to be completely plucked. Clever manipulators in this art do not seize upon their prey at a first, or a second, or a third interview. They lure Signor Pigeon on by degrees. They let him win in the first encounter, and in the second or third vary the luck, exciting him at last, perchance, by a rather heavy loss, which he is anxious to retrieve. Shuffleton Gibbs had worked Mr. Hammerton to this point, and had been assisted to some extent by Mr. Richard Tallant; but the latter gentleman had been the tool rather than the confederate of his University companion. University companion! It was this educational position which made Gibbs tolerated in the society which he affected. He was a University man, if he had not taken a degree. Something happened to disgrace him a little at Christ Church, it is true; but there!--“it was only a bit of wickedness.” He made love to a pastrycook’s daughter, and ran away with her, or something of the sort, and had a row with a fellow-student over cards. What was all this? Youthful indiscretion, an exuberance of animal spirits. He was a gentleman by education, at all events; he had worn a gown. That would have been enough to have made him a man of consideration in any provincial city in the empire, and it was a great passport even in cosmopolitan London; but in the dear old cathedral city where Arthur Phillips lived, what weight it would have given to Mr. Gibbs! “Of what college?” says a simpering inquirer. “Christ Church,” is the reply, and the man’s position is made. You had better be hanged than not have worn a gown in some English cities. And so the gown assisted to cover the cloven hoofs of Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, even in London; the gown had been sufficient for Richard Tallant, though it had not been enough for his father, and it had not shielded all the owner’s villanies; it had nevertheless worked favourably with Mr. Hammerton, who had put down Shuffleton’s wild college career to his dashing character, his natural wilfulness, and his animal spirits.