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 hang me if I wouldn't! I'd cut the races—dash me if I wouldn't! But I'm in pawn, if you know what that means. I owe a beastly lot of money at the inn, and that impudent little beggar of a landlord won't let me out of his sight. The luck's dead against me at those filthy tables; I haven't won a farthing in three weeks. I wrote to my brother the other day, and this morning I got an answer from him—a cursed canting letter of good advice, remarking that he had already paid my debts seven times. It doesn't happen to be seven; it's only six, or six and a half! Does he expect me to spend the rest of my life at the Hôtel de Hollande? Perhaps he would like me to engage as a waiter there, and pay it off by serving at the table d'hôte. It would be convenient for him the next time he comes abroad, with his seven daughters and three governesses. I hate the smell of their beastly table d'hôte! You're sorry I'm hard up? I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you. Can you be of any service? My dear fellow, if you are bent on throwing your money about, I'm not the man to stop you." Bernard's winnings of the previous night were burning a hole, as the phrase is, in his pocket. Ten thousand francs had never before seemed to him so heavy a load to carry, and to lighten the weight of his good luck by lending fifty pounds to a less fortunate fellow-player was an operation that not only gratified his good nature, but strongly commended itself to his conscience. His conscience, however, made its conditions. "My dear Longueville," Lovelock went on, "I have always gone in for family feeling, early associations, and all that sort of thing. That's what made me confide my difficulties to Dovedale. But, upon my honour, you remind me of the good Samaritan, or that sort of person; you are fonder of me than my own brother! I'll take fifty pounds with pleasure, 118