No doubt he meant to give Frank good advice. But to the sensitive and proud spirit of the boy, it sounded like withering sarcasm. He couldn't stand that.
"I'll play fifteen minutes longer," said he, looking at his watch, "if that'll please you."
"A quarter of an hour!" said Harris, contemptuously. "We'd better all stop now, and come at it fresh again, by and by."
The proposition was acceded to; for what could Frank say against it? He had not the courage to say, "Boys, I feel that I have been doing wrong, and I mean to stop at once;" but he thought it more manly to play once more, if only to show that he was not afraid of losing. "And perhaps," he thought, remembering his former luck, "I shall win."
Play again he did accordingly; and, sure enough, he won. He brought Tucket to his last dime. The poetical and philosophic spirit in which that good-humored young man contemplated his losses, was worthy of a better cause.
"'Fare thee well, and, if forever, still forever fare thee well,'" he remarked, staking the said dime. And when it was lost,--for Frank "raked the pile,"--he added, pathetically, going from Byron to Burns, "'Fare thee weel, thou brightest, fairest; fare thee weel, thou last and dearest! Had we never loved sae kindly, had we never loved sae blindly, never met, or never parted, I had ne'er been broken-hearted.' Boys, I'm dead broke, and must quit off, without some of you that are flush will lend me a quarter."
"Ask Frank," said Ellis; "he's the flushest."
So Frank lent Seth a quarter, and with that quarter Seth won back all his money, and, in the course of two more sittings, cleaned Frank out, as the phrase is.
Then, one would say, Frank had a valid excuse to retire, if not before. He had risked his money, and lost it. Certainly nothing more could be expected of him. Seth grinned, and Jack Winch rubbed his hands with delight.
But now _Frank_ was not content. His heart was gnawed by chagrin. He had not really wished to stop playing at all; for the sense of vacancy and craving which always, in such natures, succeeds the cessation of unhealthy excitement, is misery enough in itself. But to have left off with as much money in his pocket as he began with, would have been felicity, compared with the bitter consciousness of folly, the stinging vexation and regret, which came with his misfortunes.