Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/56

 Bill Sykes? Had I been the king, I would have marched two regiments into their glittering halls, seized their infamous tools, broken the rakes across the soldiers' knees, torn up their cards, smashed into firewood the roulette board and its numbers, impounded their gold and silver and sent it to the hospitals, and, locking the doors and leaving sentries, have marched off M. A. and M. B., the admirable men of business, in a file of soldiers. I should have these fellows tried, and put to hard labour for the rest of their lives. As it is, a culpable weakness has given them three or four years more to pursue their vile work, and gather, say, twenty thousand precious souls into Satan's own bag net. 



.—I cannot endure this terrible spectacle any more, and shall not go to that place again. What I have seen to-night is almost awful. I went in to those rooms, now lit up, rich in colours, and glittering like a king's palace. Such a crowd, and such a contrast! First, I had gone on the terrace, and looked down on the charming gardens, where the innocent were at the little tables, each surrounded with its group, sipping coffee; the music playing in the pavilion. Then I turn round and look at the blazing windows, at the great door behind me, which yawns like a cavern. I hear the faint "click-click" and "rattle-rattle," and that vast and quiet group, crowded together. They are serious and earnest; but there are delighted and festive groups, wandering about—happy families, charming young girls, good-natured papas and mammas looking on with delight; and now one of the young girls comes tripping back with "Charles," in such delight, showing something shining in her hand. The great soft couches round are lined with festive-looking people. Every one is "circulating," and there is an air of animation and motion over all. Some curiosity makes me linger, and share it also—a wish to describe to my little darling at home such a strange and singular phase of manners and character. I draw near to that other table—the one I had not seen in the morning, and which is consecrated to roulette. It glitters all over with pieces, sown thickly, sown broadcast, dotted here, there, and everywhere, in perfect spasms of distribution. They contend with each other, this yellow, fiery-eyed, and dirty man, and the keen but pretty girl with the powder an inch thick on her face, and her pink silk gathered up about her. They grudge each other room, do these combatants; they glare savagely underneath; the old lady in black silk guides, with a trembling hand, her single piece to some number dimly seen, but whose place she guesses at. As the ball flies round in its tiny circus, every arm, with long stretched wrists, lunges out, eager to be on; piece jostles piece. "Give us standing room," they say, no matter whether they be lost or won. Then comes the sudden leap and metallic click as the ball stumbles into its bed; then the waterfall comes spouting down from the centre—the heavy streams of coin, directed and lighting with pleasant jingling on its fellows. No one seems daunted by defeat. I see one man who has been frantically piling his gold here, there, and everywhere, and, by some strange and devilish perversity, is not allowed to win—no, not once—while little, mean, cautious fiddlers, with their shillings and francs, fare admirably. I see him biting his lips as his nervous fingers turn over the half-dozen little gold pieces, in that agonising uncertainty which I note so often, whether to play the bold game now, risk all, or save this little wreck for another season. And all to be decided within a second. When it is gone, a pause, and then that rueful walking away off the stage, while others rush into his place. Or another. His all seems gone; when, after an undecided council, his hand seeks his breast-pocket—a note to be changed—something that he has no right to meddle with! Then the girls, young, pretty, and not innocent of fear; then the ladies—good sensible wives at home, but transformed by coming to these places—gradually come in, greedy harpies, and ready, if they lose, to turn cat-like on their husbands. All this wreck, this shocking wreck, caused by this factory of wickedness! I have had enough for one day and for one night. I wish I had not seen it, for it makes me wretched; and yet it is worth seeing as a spectacle of infamy. What I have written, too, will interest my pet at home; and, as I know she hoards up every scrap of my writing, perhaps one day others will find it, and read it, and it may act as a warning. There! I am going to bed infinitely better. God be praised for his mercy! and for my pet's sake I will say over her little prayer, which she will be saying about the same time:

"O Lord! Thou who dost guide the ship over the waters, and bring safe to its journey's end the fiery train, look on me in this