"Well, old man, I was playing with an old pal of mine, with whom I have been in business for years. We had a nice code of signals arranged. I was as cautious as I could be, but my partner had been dining out, and he was a bit indiscreet. There were three or four men watching us, they caught us both, although, as I tell you, I was cautious. But I made one slip, and they were down on me like a knife. You don't know my partner. It is the end of him. But it is the end of Tommy Esmond also." To say that Spencer was disgusted would be to convey a faint idea of his feelings. And yet, as he looked at the huddled, trembling form in the chair, his sentiment was rather one of compassion than loathing. What was there behind? What tragedy of circumstance had driven this apparently light-hearted, butterfly little creature to such crooked ways? "You're an old hand, then? It's not the first time you've cheated?" Tommy Esmond smiled wanly. He did not answer the question at once. "What age do you guess me, Spencer?" "At a casual glance, a little over fifty. You may be older. Looking at you closely, you do seem a bit made up, dye and all that sort of thing." "My dear sir, I am old enough to be your father. I shall never see sixty again." "And when did you take to this game?" Esmond thought a little before he replied, he was evidently counting the years. "When I was twenty-two I got an _entree_ into society. I was then enjoying an income of two pounds a week, I was a clerk in an insurance office. At twenty-four I left the insurance business and started cheating for a living." Spencer uttered a horrified ejaculation. He had never come across anything quite like this, at any rate, in actual experience. "Would you like to know something of my history, or would you like to kick me out at once, and have done with it?" asked Esmond quietly. But there were still some remnants of compassion in Spencer. And he was also a little curious. He was dealing, after all, with a human document. Tommy's revelations would add to his experience of life. "Tell me all you would like to say," he said. "It will be a relief to unbosom myself, after the years I have led this life," was Esmond's answer. "When I left Elsinore Gardens with my life in ruins, I felt I could have shrieked it all out to the policeman standing at the corner. I came on here, because I thought you would listen to me, because I felt sure you were not a Pharisee." Spencer motioned him to the sideboard. "Mix yourself another stiff peg, and steady your nerves. Then tell me as much as you like." Esmond went over and helped himself. After a few seconds the ague-like trembling ceased, and he was able to speak in a fairly steady voice.