"I will admit no such thing. What harm is there, I would like to
know, in a social little game such as we were playing? There were
no stakes--we were not gambling."

I pointed to the half-emptied glass of ale left by young Hargrove.

"Oh! oh!" half sneered, half laughed a man, twice the age of the
one I had addressed, who sat near by, listening to our
conversation. I looked at him for a moment, and then said:

"The great danger lies there, without doubt. If it were only a
glass of ale and a game of dominoes--but it doesn't stop there,
and well the young man's father knows it."

"Perhaps he does," was answered. "I remember him in his younger
days; and a pretty high boy he was. He didn't stop at a glass of
ale and a game of dominoes; not he! I've seen him as drunk as a
lord many a time; and many a time at a horse-race, or cock-fight,
betting with the bravest. I was only a boy, though a pretty old
boy; but I can tell you, Hargrove was no saint."

"I wonder not, then, that he is so anxious for his son," was my
remark. "He knows well the lurking dangers in the path he seems
inclined to enter."

"I don't see that they have done him much harm. He sowed his wild
oats--then got married, and settled down into a good, substantial
citizen. A little too religious and pharisaical, I always thought;
but upright in his dealings. He had his pleasures in early life,