The Argosy — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

104 Court Netherleigh. “Do not shirk the question. Have you taken to play?” ‘A little, I tell you. Never mind. It’s my own affair.” ‘You were playing last night P” “ Well—yes, I was. Very little.” “Lose or win?” asked Oscar, carelessly. “Oh, I lost,” answered Robert. ‘‘ The luck was against me.” “Now, my good fellow, do you know what you had best do? Go home to Moat Grange, and get out of thisset: I know what gamesters are; they never let a pigeon off till he is stripped of his last feather. Leave with me for the Grange to-day, and cheat them ; and stop there until the mania for play shall have left you, though it should be years to come.” Ah, how heartily Robert Dalrymple wished in his heart that he could do it!—that he could break through the net in which he was involved, in more ways than one! “I cannot go to Moat Grange,” he answered. “Your reason P” ‘““Because I must stay where Iam. I wish I had never come— never set up these chambers, I do wish that. But, as I did, here I am fixed.” “T cannot think why you did come—flying from your home as soon as your father was under ground. Had you succeeded to twenty thousand a year, you could but have made hot haste to launch out in the metropolis.” “T did not come to launch out,” returned Robert, angrily. “I came to get rid of myself. It was so wretched down there.” Oscar stared. ‘‘ What made it so?” “The remembrance of my father. Every face I met, every stick and stone about the place seemed to reproach me with his death. And justly. But for my carelessness he would not have died.” “Well, that is all past and gone, Robert. You shall come back to the Grange with me. You will be safe there.” “No. « Itais too late.’ ‘“‘It is not too late. What do you mean? If ” “T tell you it is too late,” burst out Robert, in a sharp tone: and Oscar thought it was full of anguish. He tried persuasion, he tried anger; and no impression whatever could he make on Robert Dalrymple. A thought Robert was wilfully, wickedly obstinate; the secret truth being that Robert was ruined. Oscar told him he ‘‘ washed his hands” of him, and departed. It chanced that same afternoon that Robert was passing through Grosvenor Square and met Mr. Grubb close to his house. Looking at him casually, reader, he has not changed; he has the same noble presence, the same gracious manner; nevertheless, the fifteen or six- teen months that have elapsed since his marriage, have brought a look of care to his refined and thoughtful face, a line of pain to its brow. They shook hands, im COMIC JOOKSEEO