University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

Once on a time, before the dark catalogue of vices was made
complete by the wicked inventions of men, or the evil made to
counterbalance the good in the world, the Arch Enemy of mankind,
deeply sensible of the vantage-ground occupied by the
antagonistic Being, and anxiously casting about him for the
means of securing an equilibrium of power, called around him
a small company, consisting of those of his Infernal subjects
whom he had previously noted for their excellence in subtility
and devilish invention, and, after fully explaining his wants
and wishes to his keenly appreciating auditory, made proclamation
among them, that the Demon who should invent a new
vice, which, under the name and guise of Pastime, should be
best calculated to seduce men from the paths of virtue, pervert
their hearts, ruin them for earth and educate them for hell,
should be awarded a crown of honor, with rank and prerogative
second only to his own. He then, with many a gracious and
encouraging word to incite in them a spirit of emulation, and
nerve them for exertion in the important enterprise thus set before
them, dismissed them, to go forth among men, observe,
study, and come again before him on a designated time, to report
the results of their respective doings, and submit them to his
decision. Eager to do the will of their lord and Lucifer, as
well as to gain the tempting distinctions involved in his award,

the commissioned fiend-group dispersed, and scattered themselves
over the earth, which was understood to be their field of
operations. And, after noting, as long as they chose, all the
different phases of human society, the secret inclinations of
those composing it, their follies, weaknesses, and points most
vulnerable to temptation, they each returned to the dark dominions
whence they came, to cogitate in retirement, concoct and
reduce to form those schemes for securing the great object in
view, which their observations and discoveries on earth had
suggested.

At the time appointed for the hearing and decision, the
demoniac competitors again assembled before their imperial arbiter;
not this time in secret conclave, but in the presence of
thousands of congregated fiends, who, having been apprised of
the new plan about to be presented for peopling the Commonwealth
of Hell with recruits from earth, had come up in all
directions from their dismal abodes, to hear those plans reported,
and witness the awarding of the prize for the one judged most
worthy of adoption. Lucifer then mounted his throne, commanded
silence, and ordered the competitors to advance and
present, in succession, such plans as they would lay before him
for his consideration and decision. They did so; and one of
them, a young and genteel-looking devil, to whom, from a suppose
congeniality of tastes and feelings with the objects of his
care, had been especially assigned the duty of supervising the
fashionable walks of society, now stepped confidently forward
and said:

“I present for your consideration, most honored Lucifer, I
present Fashion as one of those social institutions of men which
might the most easily become, with a little fostering at our
hands, to us the most productive of vices, under a name least
calculated to alarm. It already holds an almost omnipotent
sway over the wealthier, or what they call the higher, classes
of society, who hesitate at no sins that can be committed with
its sanction; and the disposition is every day growing stronger

and stronger, among all classes, to fall in with its behests. Encourage
its progress, make its rule absolute with all, and the
world's boasted morality would trouble us, devils, no more.
This would be the direct and natural result among the most
wealthy, who would leave no vice unpracticed, no sin uncommitted,
provided they could excuse themselves under plea that
it was fashionable. With those of more limited means the
effect would be still better; for devotion to Fashion would
beget extravagance — extravagance, poverty — poverty, desperation
— desperation, crime; so with all classes, the result,
for our purpose, would be equally favorable and much the same.
The new vice I therefore propose is the one to be made out of,
and go under the name of, Fashion.”

“There may be something in this conception,” said Lucifer,
thoughtfully, after the speaker had closed; “but is it safe
against all contingencies? What if the world should take it
into their heads to make it fashionable to be good?”

“Not the least danger of that,” rejoined the other, promptly.
“That is a contingency about as likely to happen as that
your highness should turn Christian,” he added, with a sardonic
grin.

“You are right,” responded Lucifer; “and, as your scheme
comes within the rule, on the score of originality, we will reserve
it for consideration.”

“My plan,” said the next demon who spoke, “consists in inciting
man to the general use of intoxicating drinks, under the
plea of taking a social glass; for, let the use of these become
general, and all men were devils ready made, and —”

“True, most true!” interrupted Lucifer; “but that is not
new. That is a vice I invented myself, as long ago as the time
Noah was floating about in the ark, and the first man I caught
with it was the old patriarch himself. Since then it has been
my most profitable agent in the earth, bringing more recruits
to my kingdom than all the other vices put together. But our

present movement was to insure something new. The plan,
therefore, does not come within the rule, and must be set aside.”

“The new vice which I propose,” said the third demon who
came forward, “is involved in the general cultivation of music,
which I contend would render men effeminate, indolent, voluptuous,
and finally vicious and corrupt, so that whole nations
might eventually be kept out of heaven and secured for hell
through its deteriorating influences.”

“I am not a little dubious about trying to make a vice out of
music, which would be all reliable for our purposes,” remarked
Lucifer, with a negative shake of the head. “I fear it might
prove a sword which would cut both ways. It may, it is true,
be doing a pretty fair business just now in some localities; but
methinks I already see, in the dim vista of the earth's future, a
cunning Wesley springing up, and exhorting his brethren `Not
to let the Devil have all the good tunes, but appropriate them
to the service of the Lord.' Now if the religious world should
have wit enough, as I greatly fear me they would, to follow the
sagacious hint of such a leader, they might make music an
agency which would enlist two followers for the white banner
of Heaven where it would one for the red banner of Hell. The
experiment would be one of too doubtful expediency to warrant
the trial. The proposition, therefore, cannot be entertained.”

Many other methods of creating an efficient new vice were
then successively proposed by the different competitors; but
they were all, for some deficiency, or want of originality,
in turn, rejected, till one more only remained to be announced;
when its author, an old, dark-eyed demon, who was much
noted for his infernal cunning, and who, conscious perhaps of
the superiority of his device, had contrived to defer its announcement
till the last, now came forward, and said:

“The scheme I have devised for the accomplishment of the
common object of the patriotic enterprise which your Highness
has put afoot, proposes a new vice, which, passing under the
guise of innocent pastime, will not only, by itself, be fully equal

to any other of the many vices now known among men, for its
certainty to lure them to its embrace, fascinate, infatuate, deprave,
and destroy them, but will insure the exercise and combine
the powers of them all. It addresses itself to the intellectual
by the implied challenge it holds out to them to make a
trial of their skill; it appears to the unfortunate in business
as a welcome friend, which is rarely turned away; it presents
to pride and vanity the means of gratification that are not to be
rejected; it holds out to avarice an irresistible temptation; it
begets habits of drunkenness; and thus insures all the fruits of
that desolating vice; it engenders envy, hatred, and the spirit
of revenge; in short, it brings into play every evil thought and
passion that ever entered the head and heart of man, while it
the most securely holds its victims, and most speedily hunts
them down to ruin and death.”

“The name? the name?” eagerly shouted an hundred
voices from the excited fiend-throng around.

“The name,” resumed the speaker, in reply, “the name by
which I propose to christen this new and terrible device of mine,
to counteract the power of virtue, and curtail the dominions of
Heaven, is Gambling!”

“Gambling! Gambling!” responded all hell, in thunders of
applause; “and Gambling let it be,” shouted Lucifer, as the
prize was thus awarded by acclamation to the distinguished inventor
of Gambling.

From this supposable scene among the demons, we pass, by
no unnatural transition, to a kindred one among men.

In a back, secluded room, in the third story of a public house
in Boston, of questionable respectability, there might have been
found, a few hours after the dispersion of the party before described,
a small band of men sitting around a table, intently
engaged in games of chance, in which money was at stake;
while on a sideboard stood several bottles of different kinds
of liquors, with a liberal supply of crackers and cigars. Of this
company, two, who have been already introduced to the reader,

— Mark Elwood and Gaut Gurley, — seemed to be especially
pitted against each other in the game. It was now deep into
the night, and Elwood said something about going home. But
his remark being received only with jeers by the company, he
sank into an abashed silence and played on. Another hour
elapsed, and he spoke of it again, but less decidedly. Another
passed, and he seemed wholly to have forgotten his purpose;
for he, as well as all the rest of the company, had, by this time,
become intensely absorbed in the play, allowing themselves
no respite or intermission, except to snatch occasionally a glass
of liquor from the sideboard, in the entrancing business before
them. And, as the sport proceeded, deeper and deeper grew
the excitement among the infatuated participants, till every
sense and feeling seemed lost to every thing save the result of
each rapidly succeeding game; and the heat of concentrated
thought and passion gleamed fiercely from every eye, and found
vent, in repeated exclamations of triumph or despair, from every
tongue, according to the varying fortunes of the parties engaged.
On one side was heard the loud and exultant shout of the
winner at his success, and on the other, the low bitter curse of
the loser at his disappointment; the countenance of the one,
in his joy and exultation, assuming the self-satisfied and domineering
air of the victor and master, and the countenance of the
other, in his grief and envy, darkening into the mingled look
of the demon and the slave.

And thus played on this desperate band of gamesters till
morning light, which, now stealing through the shutters of their
darkened room, came and joined its voiceless monitions with
those which their consciences had long since given them, in
warning them to break up and return to their families, made
wretched by their absence. So completely, however, had they
abandoned themselves to the fatal witcheries of the play, that
they heeded not even this significant admonition; but, with uneasy
glances towards the windows, to note the progress of the
unwelcome intrusions of day, turned with the redoubled eagerness

often shown by those who know their time is limited to
their hellish engagement.

Through the whole night, Fortune seemed to have held
nearly an even scale between Elwood and his special adversary,
Gaut Gurley, contrary to the evident anticipations of the latter,
and despite all his attempts to secure an advantage. Thus far,
however, he had signally failed in his purpose; and, at the last
game, Elwood had even won of him the largest sum that had as
yet been put at stake between them. This seemed to drive him
almost to madness; and in his desperation he loudly demanded
that the stakes should be doubled for the next trial. It was
done. The game was played, and Gurley was again the loser.

“I will now stay no longer,” said Elwood, rising. “I was
forced here to-night, as you well know, Gurley, against my will,
and against all reason, to stop your clamor for a chance to win
back what you absurdly called your money lost at our last sitting;
though Heaven knows that what I then won was but a pitiful
fraction of the amount you have taken from me, within the
last two years, in the same or in a worse way. I have now
given you your chance, — yes, chance upon chance, all night, —
till your claim has been a dozen times cancelled; and, I repeat,
I will stay no longer.”

“You shall!” fiercely cried Gurley, with an oath. “You
shall stay to give me another chance, or I will brand you as a
trickster and a sneak!”

“Gentlemen,” said Elwood, turning to the company, in an
expostulating tone, “gentlemen, I appeal to you all if I have
not—”

“I will have no appeal,” interrupted Gurley, in a voice
trembling with rage. “I say I will have another chance,
or—”

“Take it, then,” hastily interposed Elwood, as if unwilling
to let the other finish the sentence; “take it: what will you
have the stakes?”

“Double the last.”

“Double?”

“Yes, double!”

“Have your own way, then,” said Elwood, with forced composure,
taking up and shuffling the cards for the important
game.

The stake was for a thousand; and the trembling antagonists
played as if life and death hung on the event. And the whole
company, indeed, forgetful of their own comparatively slight
interest, in the momentous one thus put at stake, at once turned
their eyes on the two players, and watched the result with
breathless interest. That result was soon disclosed; when, to
the surprise of all, and the dismay of Gaut Gurley, the victory
once more strangely fell to the lot of Mark Elwood, who, gathering
up the stakes with trembling eagerness, hastily rose from
the table, as if to depart.

“What in the name of Tophet does all this mean?” fiercely
exclaimed Gurley, throwing an angry and suspicious look
round the table upon those who had doubtless been, at other
sittings, his confederates in fleecing Elwood. “Yes, what is
the meaning of this? I ask you, and you, sir?”

“Better ask your own partner,” said one of the men addressed,
with a defiant look.

“Elwood? Pooh!” exclaimed Gaut, with a bitter sneer.

“And why not?” responded the former. “He may have as
good luck as the best of us, as it appears he has had. And
hark ye, Gaut, you look things at us that it might not be safe
for you to say in this room.”

“Gentlemen, you will all bear me out in leaving, now,” here
interposed Elwood, beginning to make towards the door.

“Stop, sir!” thundered Gaut. “You are not a-going to
sneak off with all that money in your pocket, by a d—d sight!”

“Why not, sir?” replied Elwood; “why not, for all you can
say?”

“Because I have lost, sir!” shouted Gurley, hoarse with rage.
“I have lost three games running, — lost all I have. I demand

a fair chance to win it back; and that chance I will have, or
I'll make you, Mark Elwood, curse the hour your refused it.”

“Gaut Gurley, you insatiate fiend!” exclaimed Elwood, in
a tone of mingled anger and distress; “you it was who first led
me into this accursed habit of play, by which you have robbed
me of untold thousands yourself, and been the means of my
being robbed of thousands more by others. You have brought
me to the door of ruin before, and would now take all I have
to save me from absolute bankruptcy.”

“Whining hypocrite!” cried Gurley, starting up in rage.
“Do you tell that story when you have my last dollar in your
pocket? But your pitiful whining shall not avail you. If you
leave this room alive, you leave that money behind you.”

“Stop, stop!” here interposed one of the company, who had
noted what had inadvertently fallen from Elwood, in his warmth,
respecting his apprehended bankruptcy; “stop, no such recriminations
and threatenings here! I can show Elwood a way to
dispose of a part of his money, at least, without bringing on
any one the charge of robbing or being robbed. Here is a
note of your signing, Mr. Elwood, — a debt of honor, — for a
couple of hundreds, contracted in this very room, you will remember.
You may as well pay it.”

“I have a similar bit of paper,” said another, coming forward
and presenting a note for a still larger sum.

“And I, likewise,” said a third, joining the group, with an
additional piece of evidence of Elwood's folly, in the shape of a
gambling note; “and I shall insist on payment with the rest,
seeing the money cannot be disposed of between you and Gaut
without a quarrel and danger of bloodshed.”

With a perplexed and troubled air, Elwood paced the room
a moment, without uttering a word in reply to the different demands
that had so unexpectedly been made upon him. He
glanced furtively towards the door, as if calculating the chances
of escaping through it before any one could interpose to prevent
him. He then glanced inquiringly at the company for

such indications of sympathy or forbearance as might warrant
the attempt; but in their countenances he read only that which
should deter him from resorting to any such means of escaping
the dilemma in which he now found himself. And, suddenly
stopping short and turning to the new claimants for his money,
he said:

“Well, gentlemen, have your way, then. I had hoped to be
permitted to carry away money enough to meet my bills and
engagements of to-day, — at least, as much as I brought here.
But, as I am not to be allowed that privilege, hand on your
paper, every scrap of my signing, and you shall have your
pay.”

A half-dozen notes of hand were instantly produced and
thrown upon the table, and the holder of each was paid off in
turn; the last of whom drew from Elwood nearly every dollar
he had in his possession.

“There, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, with a sort of desperate
calmness, “in this line of deal, at least, my accounts are all
squared. I am quits with you all.”

“Not with me, by a d—d sight!” exclaimed Gurley, no
longer able to restrain his rage at being thus baulked in his
desperate purpose of getting hold of Elwood's money, by fair
means or foul, before permitting him to leave the room. “Not
with me, sir, till the amount of that last stake, which was just
enough to make me whole, is again in my pocket; and I'll follow
you to the gates of hell, but I'll have it!”

Cowering and trembling beneath the threats and fiendish
glances of the other, Elwood siezed his hat, and rushed from
the room.

On escaping from this “den of thieves,” and gaining the
street below, Elwood's first thought was of home and his shamefully
neglected family, and he turned his steps in that direction.
But, before proceeding far, he began to hesitate and falter in his
course. He became oppressed with the feelings of a criminal.
He was ashamed to meet his family; for, fully conscious that

his looks must be haggard, his eyes red and bloodshot, and
his whole appearance disordered, he knew his return in such a
plight, at that hour in the morning, would betray the wretched
employments of the night, especially to his keen-sighted brother,
on whose assistance he now doubly depended to save him from
ruin. He therefore changed his course, and was proceeding
towards his store, when he met his confidential clerk, who was
out in search of him, and who, in great agitation, informed him
that his drafts of yesterday had all been returned dishonored;
that bills were pouring in, and the holders clamorous for their
pay. Struck dumb by the startling announcement, it was some
moments before Elwood could collect his thoughts sufficiently
to bid his clerk return, and put off his creditors till the next
day, when he would try to satisfy them all. And, having done
this, he turned suddenly into another street, wound his way
back to the inn he had just left, took a private room, locked
himself in, and for a while gave way to alternate paroxysms
of grief, remorse, and self-reproaches. After exhausting himself
by the violence of his emotions, he threw himself upon a
bed, and, thinking an hour's repose might mend his appearance,
so as to enable him the better to disguise the cause of his absence,
on his return to his family, which he now concluded to
defer till towards dinner-time, he fell into a slumber so profound
and absorbing, that he did not awake till the shadows of
approaching night had begun to darken his room.

Leaping from his couch, in his surprise and vexation at having
so overslept himself, he hastily made his toilet, and immeately
set out for home, — a home which, for the first time in his
life, he now dreaded to enter. To that wretched home we will
now repair, preceding his arrival, to relate what had there occurred
in his absence.