Meanwhile, the feverish contact of the crowded street had, strange to say, increased his loneliness, while the ruder joviality of its dissipations began to fill him with vague uneasiness.  The passing glimpse of dancing halls and gaudily whirled figures that seemed only feminine in their apparel; the shouts and boisterous choruses from concert rooms; the groups of drunken roisterers that congregated around the doors of saloons or, hilariously charging down the streets, elbowed him against the wall, or humorously insisted on his company, discomposed and frightened him.  He had known rude companionship before, but it was serious, practical, and under control.  There was something in this vulgar degradation of intellect and power—­qualities that Clarence had always boyishly worshiped—­which sickened and disillusioned him.  Later on a pistol shot in a crowd beyond, the rush of eager men past him, the disclosure of a limp and helpless figure against the wall, the closing of the crowd again around it, although it stirred him with a fearful curiosity, actually shocked him less hopelessly than their brutish enjoyments and abandonment.

It was in one of these rushes that he had been crushed against a swinging door, which, giving way to his pressure, disclosed to his wondering eyes a long, glitteringly adorned, and brightly lit room, densely filled with a silent, attentive throng in attitudes of decorous abstraction and preoccupation, that even the shouts and tumult at its very doors could not disturb.  Men of all ranks and conditions, plainly or elaborately clad, were grouped together under this magic spell of silence and attention.  The tables before them were covered with cards and loose heaps of gold and silver.  A clicking, the rattling of an ivory ball, and the frequent, formal, lazy reiteration of some unintelligible sentence was all that he heard.  But by a sudden instinct he understood it all.  It was a gambling saloon!

Encouraged by the decorous stillness, and the fact that everybody appeared too much engaged to notice him, the boy drew timidly beside one of the tables.  It was covered with a number of cards, on which were placed certain sums of money.  Looking down, Clarence saw that he was standing before a card that as yet had nothing on it.  A single player at his side looked up, glanced at Clarence curiously, and then placed half a dozen gold pieces on the vacant card.  Absorbed in the general aspect of the room and the players, Clarence did not notice that his neighbor won twice, and even thrice, upon that card.  Becoming aware, however, that the player while gathering in his gains, was smilingly regarding him he moved in some embarrassment to the other end of the table, where there seemed another gap in the crowd.  It so chanced that there was also another vacant card.  The previous neighbor of Clarence instantly shoved a sum of money across the table on the vacant card and won!  At this the other players began to regard Clarence singularly, one or two of the spectators smiled, and the boy, coloring, moved awkwardly away.  But his sleeve was caught by the successful player, who, detaining him gently, put three gold pieces into his hand.