_Stu._ And have one still.

_Bev._ Ay; I'll tell you of this friend. He found me happiest of the
happy; fortune and honour crowned me; and love and peace lived in my
heart. One spark of folly lurked there; That too he found; and by
deceitful breath, blew it to flames that have consumed me. This
friend were You to Me.

_Stu._ A little more perhaps--The friend who gave his all to save
you; and not succeeding, chose ruin with you. But no matter--I have
undone you, and am a villain.

_Bev._ No; I think not. The villains are within.

_Stu._ What villains?

_Bev._ Dawson and the rest--We have been dupes to sharpers.

_Stu._ How know you this? I have had doubts, as well as You; yet
still as fortune changed, I blushed at my own thoughts. But You have
proofs, perhaps?

_Bev._ Ay, damned ones. Repeated losses: night after night, and no
reverse. Chance has no hand in this.

_Stu._ I think more charitably; yet I am peevish in my nature, and
apt to doubt. The world speaks fairly of this Dawson; so does it of
the rest. We have watched them closely too. But 'tis a right usurped
by losers, to think the winners knaves. We'll have more manhood in
us.