“I’m going to throw no bluffs with you, Lucy.  Gambling’s in my blood.  Luigi used to say I came by my skill straight.  And I get the same kind of craving for it that a dope fiend does for dope.  I don’t care to tell anybody about it, or they’d send me to an insane asylum.  When I first came from the Canyon and moved out of Minetta Lane, I swore I’d never put foot in it again until I went in to clean it up.  And I haven’t and I won’t.  But for the first year my nails were bitten to the quick.  If my mother—­but what’s the use of that!  Mr. Seaton said every man has to have a woman to whom he opens up the deep within him.  I have you and you know you’ve promised to help me.”

“June 1.—­Lucy, I’ve got a job tutoring for the summer.  The rhetoric teacher got it for me.  It’s the son of an Episcopal vicar.  He is a boy of twelve and they want him taught English and declamation.  Lord!  If they knew all about me!  But the kid is safe in my hands.  I know how kids of twelve feel.  At least, the Minetta Lane variety.  So I’ll be at the sea shore all summer.  Going some, for Minetta Lane, eh?

“Lucy, I made fifty dollars last night at poker from a Senior in the Student’s Club.  This morning I made him take it back.”

Enoch closed the book and leaned back in his chair as Jonas appeared at the door with a pitcher of ice water.

“How come you don’t try to get a little rest, boss?” asked Jonas, glancing disapprovingly at the black book.

“I am resting, old man!  Don’t bother your good old head about me, but tumble off to sleep yourself!”

“I don’t never sleep before you do.  I ain’t for thirteen years, and I don’t calculate to begin now.”  Jonas turned the bed covers back and marched out of the room.

Enoch smiled and, opening the book again, he turned the pages slowly till another entry struck his eye.

“February 6.—­If I could only see you, touch you, cling to your tender hand to-night, Lucy!  You know that I was chosen to represent Columbia in the dedication of the Lincoln statue.  It was to have taken place next Wednesday.  But the British Ambassador, who was to be the chief Mogul there, was called home to England for some reason or other and they shoved the dedication forward to to-day, so as to catch him before he sailed.  And some of the speakers weren’t prepared, so it came about that I, an unknown Columbia senior, had to give the chief speech of the day.  Not that anybody, let alone myself, realized that it was going to be the chief speech.  It just turned out that way.  Lucy dear, they went crazy over it!  And all the papers to-night gave it in full.  It was only a thousand words.  Why in the name of all the fiends in Hades do you suppose nothing relieves me in moments of great mental stress but gambling?  You notice, don’t you, that I talk to you of Minetta Lane only when something tremendous, either good or bad, has happened to me?  Other