"I say, yes," replied Billy, in a loud tone, he was tasting for the first time the delirious excitement of gambling and winning largely, and his blood was in a ferment. "Fourpence or nothink. 'Ere goes." There did go the marble, and landed in twenty-one. Mr. Sly was not more fortunate than before. His number was seven. His face grew darker and darker. "Fourpenn'orth!" cried Billy. "Hooray!" "Try ag'in," urged Mephistopheles. "Eightpenn'orth or nothink! Why, yer in sech luck that yer'd break the Bank of England. There's no standing ag'in yer. I'm desperate, I am. I shouldn't wonder if yer was to break me." Flushed with victory, and dazzled with visions of armsful of sweet-stuff, Billy for the fifth time sent the marble down, and for the fifth time won. He screamed out the fact at the top of his voice. "That's Billy cryin' out," said one of the throng outside. "He's winnin'." "He'll 'ave the 'ole bloomin' shop," said another. "If I was Billy I'd stash it," remarked a clear-brained juvenile. "I know 'ow it'll end. I've been there myself." "Oh, you? you've got no pluck! Go in and win, Billy!" This exhortation was shouted out, and it reached Billy's ears. "There," said Mr. Sly, in a tone of suppressed excitement, and striving hard to smother his resentment at Billy's good-fortune, "d'yer 'ear wot they say? 'Go in and win.' Yer've got eightpenn'orth, make it sixteenpenn'orth or nothink. There was a boy 'ere last week"--and Mr. Sly gazed meditatively before him at the visionary boy he was referring to--"who commenced with a farden, just like you, and he won nine times runnin'. It's nothink much at fust---a farden, a ha'penny, a penny. It's _now_ that it begins to mount up. Yes, nine times running he won--ten shillings and eightpence, that's wot he got the worth of. He went out loaded. Four pound of 'ard-bake, a pound of burnt almonds, a pound of barley-sugar, three pound of peppermint-rock, same of toffee, and I don't know what else. I didn't mind a bit; it did me good. That's the way to make a forchen." The recital of the catalogue of treasures was too much for Billy, and the marble being insidiously slipped into his palm by the cunning tradesman--who was quite aware that if you go on doubling or nothing it must eventually come to nothing--Billy, with quivering nerves, dropped it down the corkscrew turret. "Three!" shouted Mr. Sly. "But I might git one or two. 'Ere goes. Seventeen! Nothink." Billy was sobered. Ruined and chapfallen he preceded Mr. Sly into the shop, and thence emerged into the alley, where he related his misfortune, while Mr. Sly, standing at the door, wiped his heated brows, and called out: "Never say die, Billy. Better luck next time." But Billy was not to be consoled. His companions, disgusted with his bad luck and disappointed in their expectations, fell off from him one by one, and he was left quite alone. A few minutes ago he was a personage, now he was nobody. He felt the fall.