Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 289: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

272 REYNOLDS’ WORKS and the assembled female gamesters. But few words were exchanged, as all were too intent on the chances of the dice to have much thought for other subjects. The stool at the foot of the table being vacant, Madge took it, and for some minutes she watched the game with the eagerness of one of its most impassioned votaries. All recollection of that duty which she had imposed upon herself, and which had. more than once made her hesitate when on her way thither from Agar Town, was now lost sight of; she had no thought, no sense, no faculty for anything save and except the game that was progressing. At the expiration of about ten minutes, she drew forth her greasy old pocketbook, and producing a bank-note, requested change of the croupier. This was immediately given, and she staked a sovereign. She lost. Again she paused for a few minutes, ere she ven- tured another coin, but presently the chances of the dice seemed favourable once more, and a second piece of gold was staked. Now shewon. ‘Then followed arun of luck, and in about ten minutes twenty sovereigns were piled up before her. With a kind of desperate resolution she rose from her seat, and said she should go, but she was immediately assailed by numerous entreaties on the part of the players, ‘‘ that she would take one more chance.”’ She wavered, the entreaties were pressed; she consented, and sat down again. In another ten minutes the pile of gold had disappeared, and another note from her pocketbook was changed. The run of luck was now against her, while a young girl of barely fourteen, who had commenced that — evening with a few coppers, had ten or a dozen sovereigns in front of her. The game continued, and presently the mistress of the establishment, who had quitted the back kitchen almost immediately after Madge’s arrival, reappeared, bearing a tray ~ on which was a single wine-glass, while in her right hand she carried a large stone jar. This contained gin, or, rather, a compound of the woman’s own concoction, consisting of some of the distiller’s spirit, with a very large amount of vitriol and sugared water. She filled the wine-glass, and presented it to the young girl who was winning gold. ‘The lost creature took it and poured its contents with avidity down her throat, giving a sigh of pleasure when she had imbibed the deleterious fluid. ‘The glass was refilled, and Eomichbooks