With that he wished them goodnight, and took his leave. Mr. Merrywhistle soon followed him, first ascertaining from Jimmy Virtue the address of Blade-o'-Grass.
Jimmy, being left to his own resources, went to the door to see what sort of a night it was. The rain was still falling drearily. It was too miserable a night for him to take his usual pipe in the open air, and too miserable a night for him to expect to do any business in. So he put up his shutters, and retired to his parlour. Then he took out his greasy pack of cards, and conjured up Jack for a game of All-Fours. With his eye on his opponent, he filled his pipe carefully, lighted it, puffed at it, and cut for deal. He won it, and the first thing he did after that was to turn up a knave (slipping it from the bottom of the pack) and score one. He was in a more than usually reckless and cheating mood. He staked large sums, went double or quits, and double or quits again, and cheated unblushingly. He won a fortune of Jack in an hour; and then contemptuously growled, 'I'll try you at cribbage, old fellow,' The cribbage-board was his table, and he scored the game with a bit of chalk. Jack fared no better at cribbage than he had done at All-Fours. Jimmy had all the good cribs, Jack all the bad ones. By the time that the table was smeared all over with chalk figures, Jimmy was sleepy. He played one last game for an enormous stake, and having won it and ruined Jack, he went to bed contentedly, and slept the sleep of the just.
Mr. Merrywhistle had no very distinct plan in his mind when he left Jimmy Virtue's shop to visit Blade-o'-Grass. Sincerely commiserating her condition, he wished to put her in the way to get an honest and respectable living, but was deeply perplexed as to the method by which she was to arrive at this desirable consummation. Some small assistance in money he might manage to give her; but in what way could it be applied? by what means was she to be lifted out of that slough into which she had been allowed to sink? And then he feared that she was past training. As Robert Truefit had said, Blade-o'-Grass was a woman now, with a grown-up person's passions and desires firmly rooted in her nature. And he feared something else, also. But he would see her and speak to her freely; good might come of it.