“I declare to you that I knew so little about bills, that I didn’t know how to draw one out; but I was mighty glad to be shown the way and to give it him, and thank him over and over again for his kindness. That was the beginning of my going to the devil. If I hadn’t been a fool, I might have saved myself even then, for I had friends who would have lent or given me twice fifty pounds if I had asked them for it. But I _was_ a fool. In the course of a day or two I got a note from B—y, reminding me that the way out of the difficulty was by the same path as I had got into one, and that a little judicious ‘backing’ would set me right before even my bill fell due. And I was fool enough to walk into the snare. I wouldn’t borrow to pay the fifty pounds, but I borrowed left and right, of my mother, of my brothers, on all manner of lying pretences, to follow the ‘advice’ B—y was constantly sending me. When I came to the end of their forbearance, I did more than borrow; but that we won’t speak of. In five months from the beginning, I was without a relative who would own me or speak to me, and without an employer—cracked up, ruined. And there’s B—y, as I said before, with his white hat cocked on one side of his head, and his gold toothpick, chaffing me about my old boots. What do I do for a living? Well, I’ve told you such a precious lot, I may as well tell you that too. Where I lodge it’s a ‘leaving-shop,’ and the old woman that keeps it can’t read or write, and I keep her ‘book’ for her. That’s how I get a bit of breakfast and supper and a bed to lie on.”
[Since the above was written, the police, under the energetic guidance of their new chief, have been making vigorous and successful warfare against public gamblers and gambling agents. The “spec” dodge has been annihilated, “betting-shops” have been entered and routed, and there is even fair promise that the worst feature of the bad business, that which takes refuge behind the specious cloak of the “commission-agent,” may be put down. That it may be so, should be the earnest wish of all right-thinking men, who would break down this barrier of modern and monstrous growth, that blocks the advancement of social purity, and causes perhaps more ruin and irreparable dismay than any other two of the Curses herein treated of.]