Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/346

336 bundle of gold and notes that came to me!"

My chest was heaving, my eyes, I suppose, growing wild. There was the persecuting perverseness! Why should I have to listen to all this? Just to torture me. Could they not let me leave in peace?

"Come," said one of the girls, "and look at this great engine, the one that is to take us. Do explain it to me."

Here was folly at full growth. I could not be left in peace to listen to a dramatic story like this—was it not what I always proclaimed! Let any one look back on these pages and find the proof there. But I was argued out of it, hectored, lectured by complacently pious people.

I heard him going on.

"I took out twenty napoleons and piled them thickly about the lucky Zero, on the square, on the corners, faith, in any way that they would fit at all. Plastered all well down. Round it went again—click, I declare if it wasn't Zero again!"

My foot went down on the asphalte with a stamp of agony. "I knew it;" I cried! "there are instincts in these things, and they are the fools who shut their eyes and ears."

"I don't know about that," he said; "but Zero is the boy, and I have always said it. He sticks to you if you stick to him."

"It is notorious," I said; "but it is cruel, scandalous. No one here can be let alone—persecuted worried. It is others who cause all the ruin, not you."

"Not me," he repeated, looking at me with surprise, "of course not. I declare they took a couple of minutes counting and paying me. I suppose I have all my own back, and about two hundred and fifty profit. Then I thought I would try again, but time was up, so I came off."

The father smiled. The good are always indulgent to success. He didn't smile at me when I was miserable.

"Well, all's well that ends well. I am glad you saved yourself."

"I wish I had stayed now," said the captain. "I could have come on by a late train. They said it was all going on the low numbers."

"There now," I said, hurriedly. "Yes there would be a run of high ones, with a tendency to get back to the low ones, which would bring up Zero again. It is certain—morally certain. I have seen it happen over and over again."

"Too often, my dear friend, I am afraid," said the smooth father, taking my arm. "There's the bell, and I am not sorry."

I shook myself free. "My luck, my old luck—the demoniac trap, just to get me away at the very moment I might be successful. Am I to be the only one robbed—every one to go off laughing and smiling, but me? It is the righteous dispensation the parsons preach."

"Oh, what folly, my friend, this is! I am ashamed of you."

"Then let there be one rule—let there be fairness, even in this villany. I won't be singled out for ruin, and despair, and death, and let every one else escape. I am not to be the only one robbed, while every one else gets their money——"

"Take your seats, gentlemen! Mount!"

"My dear Austen, you promised me," said he, "you know you did."

I remembered my politeness. Thank Heaven, it cannot be said I was so much the slave of my persecutions as to forget my self-control.

"I shall be very glad to join you at Frankfort by the next train. I have indeed been so hurried, I have forgotten a dozen things."

"A wretched excuse," he said—"quite transparent—that can impose on no one."

The guard was at the next carriage, "banging" his way down.

"Mount, gentlemen—mount!"

Was it some providence was calling to me? "Mount—mount, for your life!" But I answered, fiercely, "Do you wish to insult me? You think you can speak any way to one in my case. I would not travel with you now if I was insured to win a thousand pounds in gold. No; go your way, and let me go mine."

He did not answer, but, turning away, entered the carriage. They gave me a soft imploring look. Then the door was shut upon them.

"! You are going?"

"I am not going," I said, coldly. Then the whistle shrieked. I thought it was the shriek of the despairing demon, baulked of his prey. O fool!

 

