been to pay away his hundred pounds before leaving England, but young Smith of Rochester, who sat at my left, told me what the trouble was one day as we walked the deck.
"Do you know," he began, "that Henry Storm is being robbed?"
"Being robbed?" I answered; "you mean he has been robbed."
"Well, has been, and is being, too. The thing is going on yet. He is playing altogether too much poker in the smoking room, and has lost a pile of money—more, I imagine, than he can well afford."
"That's what's the trouble with him, is it? Well, he ought to know better than to play for bigger stakes than he can afford to lose."
"Oh, it's easy to say that; but he's in the hands of a swindler, of a professional gambler. You see that man?" He lowered his voice as he spoke, and I looked in the direction of his glance. By this time we knew, in a way, everybody on board the ship. The particular man Smith pointed out was a fellow I had noticed a good deal, who was very quiet and gentlemanly, interfering with nobody, and talking with few. I had spoken to him once, but he had answered rather shortly, and, apparently to his relief, and certainly to my own, our acquaintance ceased where it began. He had jet black
