CHAPTER II.

On the green table of life the cards fall in many ways, and the proud king often has to bow his head before the meek and unassuming ace.—­BINNS.

AND now began for SONOGUN a time of moral stress and torture such as he had never anticipated.  It is an old saying, and perhaps (who knows?) a truism, that virtue is its own reward, not, perhaps, the reward that ambitious people look for, but the easy consciousness of superiority which comes to those who feel themselves to be on a higher level than the rest of the world, which struggles on a lower level.  Another philosopher, nameless, but illustrious, has declared, in burning words, that “Honesty is the best policy,” best in some form, perhaps hardly understood now, but no less real because we are unable to appraise it in the current coin of the realm over which Her Most Gracious Majesty, whom may Heaven preserve, holds sway.  But SONOGUN had never thought of Heaven.  To him, young, proud, gloomy, and moody, Heaven had seemed only—­(Several chapters of theological disquisition omitted.—­ED.) The click of the billiard-balls maddened him, the sight of a cue made him rave like a maniac.  One evening he was walking homeward to Drury Lane.  He had given his coat to a hot-potato-man, deeming it, in his impulsive way, a bitter satire on the world’s neglect, that the senseless tubers should have jackets, while their purveyor lacked a coat.  The rain was pouring down, but it mattered little to him.  He had wrapped himself in that impenetrable mantle of cold scorn, and thus he watched with a moody air the crowd of umbrella-carrying respectabilities, who hurried on their way without a thought of him.  Suddenly some one slapped him on the back, and, as he turned round, he found himself face to face with a couple of seedy-looking gentlemen.

“I perceive,” began SONOGUN, “that you hate the world, having suffered much injustice from it.”

“We do; we have!” was the cordial reply.

“I, too,” continued SONOGUN, “have many grievances.  But tell me who and what are you?”

“Our names are unknown even to ourselves,” replied his new friends, for friends he felt them to be.  “By profession we are industrial knights.  That should be sufficient.

“It is;—­more than sufficient,” said the proud, honourable young man, “I will be one of you.  We will take it out of the world together.”

The bargain thus made was soon ratified.  They procured cards, SONOGUN whistled to his dog Stray, and they all set out together to the nearest railway station to pick up their victims.  This is the usual method, and thus card-sharpers are manufactured.

CHAPTER III.

  Nay, this is truth, though heart-strings break,
    And youth with gloomy brows hears:—­
  Howe’er you try, you shall not make
    Silk purses out of sows’ ears.