a worse resident than mr wobbler the pedestrian took up his abode at slam’s, and this was no other than his son, josiah slam, who had gone to london as the only field wide enough for his talents ten years before, and had only been occasionally heard of since. now, however, he thought fit to pay his parents a visit, and did not appear to be in prosperous circumstances, though it is probable that he had money, or money’s worth, or the prospect of it, for slam was not the man to kill the fatted calf for a prodigal son, unless he saw the way to making a good profit out of the veal, the hoofs, and the skin.
josiah was a young man of varied accomplishments, all of which were practised for the purpose of transferring other people’s cash from their pockets to his own. he called himself a sportsman, and no doubt the operation alluded to was sport, to him. arriving about christmas time, when holiday making was general, he gleaned a little at the game of skittles, at which many of the agriculturists round about thought they were somewhat proficient; but cunning as he was he could not go on disguising his game for ever, and so directly he saw that the yokels were growing shy of playing with him, he gave it up. the sunday pitch-and-toss and card assemblages were also a source of profit to him. marriner thought he could cheat, and had indeed stolen money in that way from his companions, and there was nothing josiah slam liked better than dealing with a weaker member of his own fraternity. he allowed marriner to cheat him a little, and pretended not to discover it; played at being vexed; drew him on, and fleeced him of his ill-gotten gains.
but it was apparent that he played too well at these amusements also, so then he showed them a game at which everybody might win, except himself. where it was all chance, and skill could not interfere. roulette, in short. the room in which professor wobbler had given his boxing lessons had a table fitted up in it, and on this table the wheel-of-fortune, with its black and red compartments, and its little ivory ball to rattle round and finally fall into one of them, was placed, with a cloth marked in compartments answering to those in the wheel for the gamblers to stake their money upon. this game proved very fascinating to the dissipated amongst the farmers’ sons round about, and to some of the farmers too, and money which ought to have gone to buy stock, or for the rent, was lost at that table. of course some of them won occasionally, and considerable sums, for them, too; that formed the fascination of it.
but the agricultural interest was depressed, and ready money not forthcoming to the extent josiah slam desired; so upper servants of the neighbouring gentry were admitted, under strong vows of secrecy, and more than one gamekeeper’s and huntsman’s family was short of coals and meat that winter, because the money to provide such necessaries was left on that satanic, innocent-looking table. every night this gambling went on, and josiah made a good deal of money by it, being prepared, however, to clear out of the neighbourhood at the first symptom of the police having caught scent of the affair.
ready money was waning and business growing slack when the weston boys came back from the christmas holidays, and josiah, who knew that some of them frequented his father’s yard, saw a fine opportunity of augmenting his gains by setting his little ball rolling in the daytime for their especial benefit. the scheme was nearly stifled by its own success; on the very first occasion a boy won four pounds, and could not conceal the triumphant fact from two or three intimate friends, who each whispered it to two or three others, and the consequence was that on the next saturday afternoon no fewer than thirty westonians came to slam’s yard seeking admittance. this alarmed old slam, who saw a speedy prospect of discovery, and of that hold upon him which the authorities had long been seeking, being afforded them, to the consequent break up of his establishment. better small safe profits which should last, he thought, than a haul, which after all must be limited to the amount of the school-boys’ pocket-money, and be shared with his son, and the stoppage of all his little sources of profit. not to mention the prospect of legal punishment. so the thirty had to go away again grumbling, with their money in their pockets. o fortunati, si sua bona norint.
but small parties of the initiated were still admitted, amongst them, of course, saurin and his shadow, edwards. the latter, who, as was said in a former chapter, had a peculiar fondness for games of chance, was positively infatuated with this device of young slam’s. it interfered with his studies by day, and he dreamed of it by night, so much did it engross his thoughts. he was never easy unless staking his shillings on that table, and watching eagerly whether the little ball would drop into a red hole or a black one. saurin did not take half the interest in it at first, the principal attraction for him lying in the illegality, and the tampering with what he had heard and read of as having been the ruin of so many thousands. and he thought what fools they must be. there were many ways in which he could well imagine anyone spending his last penny, but not over a toy like this. but one day he came away a winner of a couple of sovereigns, and there was something in seeing the shillings and half-crowns gathering into a pile before him which caused him to catch the sordid fever with which his friend was infected. hitherto he had made his stakes carelessly, but now he took a deeper interest in the thing. sometimes he had won a few shillings and edwards had lost, and at other times it went the other way, but the winner’s gains were never so great as the loser’s losses, and it was evident that the difference must remain with the conductor of the game, josiah slam.
“why, we have been practically playing against each other for that rogue’s benefit!” exclaimed saurin, when he made this discovery. “in future we must always stake our money the same way.” and this they did.
then saurin had another bright idea. it was an even chance each time whether red or black won, just the same as heads or tails in tossing, so it could not go on very long being one or the other in succession. then, supposing they staked on red, and it turned up black several times, they had only to persevere with red and increase the stake and they must win their losses back, while if it was red several times they would have a clear gain.
this appeared to edwards as a stroke of genius, and he was in a state of fever till they had an opportunity of putting it in practice. and it answered at first; but presently one colour, the wrong one, won so many times running that all their united capital went into josiah’s bank.
they looked at one another in blank dismay; there was an end to their speculations for the rest of that term, and by the next mr slam junior would have decamped from the paternal abode, for when the racing season commenced he flew at far higher game than the purses of rustics and school-boys.
“can’t come no more, can’t yer?” said josiah. “i’m sorry for that, though i expect i should be a loser, for you play well and knows a thing or two, you do. but it’s the sport i care for more than the money, and i should have liked yer to have another chance. i know what i did once when i were in that fix; i just took and pawned my watch, and with the money i got on it i won back all i’d lost and more on the back of it, in a brace of shakes, and then took the ticker out again all comfortable.”
“but there is no pawnbroker near here.”
“no, in course not, and such a thing might not suit gents like you neither. not but lords and markisses does it often; and if ever you really did want a pound or two very bad, for a short time, there’s my father, as goes over to cornchester perpetually, would pop anything light and small for yer, and bring yer back the money and ticket safe enough.”
the hint took; old slam was intrusted with edwards’ watch that evening, and shortly afterwards with saurin’s; and later on with all the pins and rings they possessed, though these were not worth much.
this may all sound accountable in edwards, who was so weak and soft; but saurin, though vicious, was no fool, and such excessively absurd conduct may appear to you inconsistent with his character. but that is because you do not know the rapidly enervating and at the same time fascinating mastery which gambling has on the mind of one who gives way to it. it is a sort of demoniacal possession; the kind-hearted, amiable man becomes hard and selfish, the generous man mean and grasping, the strong-minded superstitious under its influence. it may seem strange to enact laws to prevent people from risking their own money if they choose, but every civilised government has found it absolutely necessary to do so. for the losing gamester always thinks that with a little more money to risk he would certainly win all back again, and the thought maddens him so that he will not even shrink from crime to obtain it.
one day when the pair were penniless, and had no more means of raising money, young slam generously offered them a loan, only requiring them to sign a paper acknowledging the transaction. to prevent their feeling themselves placed under an obligation he delicately allowed them to sign for more than they had received a proposition which saurin acceded to with alacrity. edwards, though he also signed, did so with hesitation, and expressed fears about the safety of the transaction afterwards.
“pooh!” said saurin, “the i o u is mere waste paper; we are both under age, and can snap our fingers at him if he demands payment. besides, we will pay him back the first time we win enough.”
“but supposing we don’t win enough? we have been very unlucky lately,” objected edwards.
“all the more reason why luck should change,” replied saurin. “but suppose it does not, all the money will have gone into the fellow’s pocket, so we shall have repaid him in reality, don’t you see?”
edwards didn’t quite. if you borrow a shilling of any one to gamble with, and lose the stake and pay him with the shilling you have borrowed from him, he does not exactly get what is due to him. however, edwards made no reply; no doubt saurin knew best.
crawley lost a little of the estimation in which he had been held that term. it was extremely mean of gould to gossip about his guest’s discomfitures at nugget towers, but the temptation to glorify himself at the other’s expense was too strong. he had plenty of pocket-money always, and rich men or rich boys are sure to have some one to listen to them with a certain amount of deference, and if gould was not popular exactly, his hampers were.
“i had crawley to stay with me at christmas, you know,” he said. “he’s a good fellow; pity he’s so awfully poor. he had never been in a decent house before, and was awfully astonished. he had what they call ‘the keeper’s gun,’ a ten-pound thing; our head-keeper twigged it. good gun enough, i daresay, but not what a gentleman has for himself. but he could not use it; worst shot i ever met, by jove! i showed him a thing or two, and he began to improve by my hints. he is not above taking hints, i will say that for him; and his riding! why, i thought from those prints in his room that he was ever such a swell; but i don’t believe he was ever outside a horse before. even the ploughmen laughed at him. ‘get inside and pull up the windows!’ they called out.”
and so he went on, somewhat exaggerating all crawley’s failures, not so much out of any ill-will as for self-glorification. you may know the pastime of boring a hole through a chestnut, threading it on a string, and fighting it against other chestnuts: if you hit on a very tough chestnut, and with it broke another one, it is, or used to be the rule that your chestnut counted all the victories of the one it split in addition to its own, of which a careful account was kept. so that if a chestnut was a fiver, and it beat a tenner, it became at one leap a fifteener. in something the same way gould had an idea he might score by crawley, who was thought so much of for his proficiency in many things. if he himself was so much richer, such a better rider and shot, it ought to be assumed that if he took the trouble he could also beat him at cricket, football, mathematics, german, and freehand drawing. it was not very logical, and indeed he did not put the matter to himself so nakedly as that, but that was the sort of idea which influenced him nevertheless.
at the same time i fear that there may have been a little spite in his feelings too; he had been a good deal snubbed by his sister clarissa for introducing a friend who had gone far to spoil her triumph in the play she had got up with such pains and forethought, and he much regretted having ever asked him. gould’s bragging would not have been much believed, only crawley confirmed it. “yes,” he said, “i went to stay with gould’s people; very kind of them to ask me. they live in grand style; i thought i had got to windsor castle by mistake at first. i should have enjoyed it immensely if they had not made me act in private theatricals, which i hate, and i am afraid i came to utter grief over it. took me out snipe-shooting; did you ever shoot at a snipe? bad bird to hit; gould got some. i suppose one would pick up the knack of it in time. and, yes, we went out with the harriers; i had never sat a horse when he jumped anything before, and i came a couple of croppers. but it was great fun, and i did not hurt myself. gould did not get a fall, oh no; he is used to it.”
a good many were rather disgusted with gould when he talked in the way he did, and buller let him see it. “it’s awfully bad form to ask a fellow to your house, and then boast that he can’t do things that he never tried before, so well as you can,” he blurted out.
“oh, of course, we and know that crawley is perfect in your eyes,” sneered gould.
“that’s rot,” said buller elegantly; “but i do know this, that you might have practised anything you know, shooting, riding, anything, all your life, and if crawley had a week’s practice he would beat your head off at it; come, then, i’ll bet you what you like.”
“that is impossible to prove.”
“no matter, it does not need proof; every fellow with eyes in his head must see it. but that’s nothing. if you were ever so much better it would be just as mean to brag about it.”
crawley had no idea that gould bore him any grudge, and being grateful to him for his invitation, sought to give him those opportunities of intimacy which he had evidently coveted before. but it was gould now who drew back, somewhat to the other’s relief, for he could not bring himself to care much about him.
well, all this foolish talk of gould’s did have a certain effect: a good many boys lost some faith in their idol, and began to suspect that its feet might be of clay. and then crawley took to reading very hard that term, for his time for trying to get into woolwich was approaching, and he was very anxious not to fail; and this made him less sociable, which affected his popularity. it did not interfere with his sports; he was as energetic at football as ever, and took his usual pains to make the boys pay up their subscriptions, for he was secretary and treasurer. but that was not exactly a genial duty, though everybody was glad that somebody else would take the trouble. and for the rest, he was now always working hard or playing hard.
“hulloa, edwards!” he said one day about the middle of term, “you have been very lazy about your football lately; you promised to be good at it, you know. it’s a pity to give it up.”
“but i have not,” said edwards. “i am going in for it again now.” and he meant it; for the last penny of the loan had vanished, and he felt the need of excitement and action of some kind.
“that’s right, old fellow,” said crawley. “of course you play for your house against ours in the match.”
“i believe so.”
“come and have a game this afternoon,” said crawley, turning back after they had parted; for the pallid and careworn face of the other struck him, and he thought very likely a little exercise and bustle was just what he wanted, but that he felt listless, as one does sometimes, when one is glad afterwards if some one else will save us the trouble of making up our minds, and start us.
“no, thanks,” replied edwards, “i can’t come to-day, i have something else i must do. but i shall practise regularly after to-day.” and he went on his way to meet saurin, and go with him to slam’s yard.
for a crisis had arrived in their affairs which assumed a most serious aspect. it was no longer a question of obtaining the means of continuing their gambling; they had awakened from that dream, and saw what dupes they had been. and indeed the slams, father and son, found that their little game was being talked about in the neighbourhood too freely for safety, and had abruptly discontinued it. josiah, indeed, was about to take his departure altogether, and in announcing that intention to saurin and edwards, demanded immediate payment of the money he had advanced them, in consideration of which they had jointly signed an acknowledgment for five pounds. they had, indeed, kept away from the yard when their money was all gone, but josiah slam was not to be balked in that manner. he went over to weston, and accosted saurin in the street.
“i cannot pay you just now; don’t speak to me here, we shall be seen,” said saurin.
“what do i care for that?” replied josiah. “if you don’t come to me i’ll come to you.”
“i will come to the yard to-morrow afternoon, only do go away now,” urged saurin.
“you had better,” said the man significantly. and so saurin and edwards were now on their way to the yard.
“well, gents, have you got the money?” asked josiah slam, who admitted them. “i hope so, for i wants to be off, and i’m only a-waiting for that.”
“no,” replied saurin, “we have not got it; it is not likely. we did not sign that paper until we had lost everything to you, and we shall not have any more till after easter. perhaps we may pay you then, though i don’t consider we owe you anything really. you have won it all back, and a lot more besides.”
“what’s that to do with it?” cried young slam. “you had as good a chance of winning of me, hadn’t yer?”
“no, of course not,” replied saurin. “i am not certain that we had any chance at all.”
“what d’yer mean? yer—”
“oh, don’t bluster and try to bully,” said saurin. “i’m not afraid of you.”
“oh, you’re not, ain’t yer, my game chicken? but i have got your i o u.”
“much good may it do you! why, we are under age, and it’s of no value at all.”
“and you call yerself a gentleman! yah! but i’m not so green as yer think, my boy. of course i knowed it warn’t a legal dokiment. but it’s proof enough for me. if you don’t pay i shall take it to yer master, and see if he won’t pay it for yer.”
“don’t be a fool; you know very well he would not.”
“no, i don’t; at any rate i shall try it on.”
“it would do you no good, i tell you.”
“if not, it would do you two chaps harm, i know; why, you would get it pretty hot if yer master knowed yer had come here at all; and if he found you’d been playing cards on a sunday, and roulette, and pawning yer watches and things, i’ll bet a hundred it wouldn’t make it better. gents like you can allus get money somehow; write to yer friends; it’s only two pun ten apiece, and they won’t stick at that to get you out of such a shindy as this will be. this here’s thursday and i’m bound to go on monday. if you don’t bring them five pounds by then, i’ll go to your master with that ’ere i o u in my hand on monday morning as sure as i stand here. so now you know.”
and with this ultimatum the rascal dismissed them. they walked slowly along the lane leading to weston with hearts as heavy as could be, for indeed they were at their wits’ end. if this fellow fulfilled his threat, and they had no doubt he would, it most certainly would result in expulsion for them both. to write home for more money was out of the question, for each had exhausted every conceivable excuse for doing so already, and any further application would only bring a letter to dr jolliffe asking the reason for all this extravagance, instead of cash, and so precipitate the calamity rather than ward it off. a less shameful peccadillo might have been confessed, but this low-lived gambling, this association with a fellow like josiah slam, how could it be spoken of? impossible! well, but what was to be done? anything, anything to stave off the immediate peril; but what? that thought haunted each of them all day and during a sleepless night, and when they met on the following morning each looked at the other to see if he could detect any gleam of hope in his face.
“look here,” said saurin, “there is just a chance, not a good one, but still a chance. that fellow gould always has heaps of money, and from all these stories of crawley’s visit to him at christmas his people must be very rich. now he is not a generous fellow, but he likes to show off. and if we went to him and told him all about it, and that we were dead certain to be expelled if we could not raise five pounds, do you not think he might lend it us till after easter?”
“i am afraid he won’t,” replied edwards, “but it is worth trying.”
“you see, it would be something for him to brag about afterwards,” continued saurin. “it would make him look important and influential that he had got two fellows out of such a row, and was the only one in the school who could do it.”
“it is worth trying at any rate,” said edwards. “ask him this afternoon.”
