This gambling makes us eat all kinds
of dirt; and I give you my honour, if I was
to insult you in the most degrading way,
we would have you returning when you had
lost the last coin, with a 'Grainger, do let
me have that money I returned to you
to-day.' No, my poor man, I wouldn't like
to see you so low as that. So just keep
it, at least for a few hours."

That happy hour may come; for surely
there are not special victims selected whom
the world shall persecute from beginning to
the end. Now, to go to bed, and get some
soft sleep, which I sigh for, and yet—it is too
early. After all, there is nothing so much to
elevate me, a few wretched louis got back
out of the vast total all melted away. The
luck may turn to-morrow. But it is really
like being elated at surmounting a small
hill, with the Alps, and Mont Blanc itself,
rising beyond. Ah! I should have stayed
on, as Grainger said, and backed my luck.
If we do not back our luck, it will not back
us. I am getting restless, and shall go out
for a stroll in the cool air.

What was I to do? Yes, what was I
to do? I could not live on, under this
horrible, restless, undecided condition of
existence. If I could but tear myself from the
fatal edge of the precipice—but what would
be before me then? Return to disgrace
and certain ruin—strange to say, there
was one thing I shrank from, the terrible
suspense, the journey between—the flutter
and impatience of that would be worse than
death, worse than what was to come in the
end. At the bottom of the gardens and
outside the terrace—those gardens which
are kept up by these infernal decorators,
and in which some of my lost gold will
furnish wages for gardeners and flowers—
I say, at the bottom of this devilish
pasture runs the road, and on the other side of
that, larger more retired walks and grounds,
with the great view of the hills and the
broad open country, opening out fresh and
innocent, as if they did not, with the air,
benefit by man's crimes and villanies. But
this hypocrisy would not pass upon me,
and I knew that the vile, devilishly got
gambler's money had cleared away the trees,
had planted others, and had cut artfully
winding walks up the sides of the hills.
Nature indeed! Was not that the last
touch of satanic craft? . . . .

There was here a sort of retirement; oh!
would to Heaven it had been utter loneliness
and desolation, cut off from the gangs of
smooth and idle chatterers, who come
smirking by, and in their mean cowardly
way get vile and sinful benefits out of what
their pitiful hearts have not courage, or are
ashamed of their fellow Grundys, to face or
touch. What a miserably contemptible crew!
So sneaking and cowardly! Mrs. This, Mr.
That, so genteelly good, and yet when
judgment comes to be nicely determined, more
responsible for this mean compounding, than
poor struggling wretches who make no
pretence, but who would do right had they
strength. Surely they and the band of
swindlers, who hold this place, are the guilty
ones. Never fear, never fear, they will be
reckoned with in good time and to the last
farthing—I pledge my poor tortured soul for
that. Their gathering up of skirts and
complacent interchange of suitable reprobation
over the tumbler, and on the steps of the
wells, with officially pious lords, aye, and
even bishops and clergymen, shall not save
them. Health, indeed! Ordered the waters!
Must come! I thought the good and the
officially pious were to sacrifice health,
strength, wealth, life itself, in the holy cause
of principle, but that is their concern, as
they will find out one of these fine morning,
or perhaps when the dark, never-ending
night is closing in about them. Now they
will go back to their country-houses, town-
houses, and at some dinner party tell what
they think dramatic things, about so many
notes down, so many heaps of gold "raked
in by the croupier," and then, to a chorus
of "Really now;" "How dreadful!" or
"How exciting!" return to sip their
champagne or sherry, quite pleased with their
own powers of touching off a picture.

What do they care, if some agonised
wrench of the heart followed that "raking
in" of the croupier? What do they care, if
with that heap of notes rustled away hope
and happiness? From those satanic fingers
came in return the hellish present of ruin,
disgrace, remorse, something that would
drag down home and house, and maybe
death itself. That would be only too much
of a blessing.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S FAREWELL
READINGS.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at Edinburgh,
February 24; Glasgow, February 25; Edinburgh,
February 26; St. James's Hall, London, March 2;
Wolverhampton, March 4; Manchester, March 6 and 8; Hull, March 10; York, March 11; Hull, March 12.

All communications to be addressed to MESSRS.
CHAPPELL AND Co., 50, New Bond-street, London, W.