THE STOLEN MANUSCRIPT.


Captain Edmund Ducie came of a good family. His people were people of
mark among the landed gentry of their county, and were well-to-do even
for their position. Although only a fourth son, his allowance had been a
very handsome one, both while at Cambridge and afterwards during the
early years of his life in the army. When of age, he had come into the
very nice little fortune, for a fourth son, of nine thousand pounds; and
it was known that there would be "something handsome" for him at his
father's death. He had a more than ordinary share of good looks; his
mind was tolerably cultivated, and afterwards enlarged by travel and
service in various parts of the world; in manners and address he was a
finished gentleman of the modern school. Yet all these advantages of
nature and fortune were in a great measure nullified and rendered of no
avail by reason of one fatal defect, of one black speck at the core. In
a word, Captain Ducie was a born gambler.

He had gambled when a child in the nursery, or had tried to gamble, for
cakes and toys. He had gambled when at school for coppers,
pocket-knives, and marbles. He had gambled when at the University, and
had felt the claws of the Children of Usury. He gambled away his nine
thousand pounds, or such remainder of it as had not been forestalled,
when he came of age. Later on, when in the army, and on home allowance
again, for his father would not let him starve, he had kept on gambling;
so that when, some five years later, his father died, and he dropped in
for the "something handsome," two-thirds of it had to be paid down on
the nail to make a free man of him again. On the remaining one-third he
contrived to keep afloat for a couple of years longer; then, after a