“Lord, no! Why, I should be so damned elated that before the day was out there’d be a score of fresh debts staring me in the face!”

“Let me lend you a thousand to begin on? Could you not keep out of debt?”

“I keep out of debt? Impossible! Don’t look so solemn, Dick; I told you ’twas in the blood. We never have a penny to bless ourselves with, but what’s the odds? I shall have a run of luck soon⁠—a man can’t always lose. Then I shall be able to repay you, but, of course, I shan’t. It’ll all go at the next table. I know!” He spoke so ingenuously that Richard could not be angry with him. There was a certain frankness about him that pleased, and though he might be spendthrift and heedless, and colossally selfish, Richard felt a genuine affection for him. He would have liked to argue the point further, but Lavinia came forward, refolding her letter.

“Tracy is coming tomorrow afternoon,” she told her husband. “ ’Twill be prodigiously agreeable, will it not?”