increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the
weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the
fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and
honorable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole
reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed,
among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the
clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such courses
the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson--the noblest and most
liberal commoner at Oxford: him whose follies (said his parasites)
were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy--whose errors but
inimitable whim--whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing
extravagance?
I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there
came to the university a young _parvenu_ nobleman, Glendinning--rich,
said report, as Herodes Atticus--his riches, too, as easily
acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and of course marked him
as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in play,
and contrived, with the gambler's usual art, to let him win
considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my
snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full
intention that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the
chambers of a fellow-commoner (Mr. Preston) equally intimate with
both, but who, to do him justice, entertained not even a remote
suspicion of my design. To give to this a better coloring, I had
contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was
solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear
accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe
himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was
omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter
for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.
We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length
effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole
antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite _écarté_. The rest of the
company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own
cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The _parvenu_, who
had been induced, by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to
drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness
of manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially but
could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my
debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port,
he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating--he proposed to
double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of
reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him
into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance,
did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how
entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had
quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing
the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I
perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say, to my
astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries
as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost,
although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously
annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the
wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented itself;
and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own character in the
eyes of my associates, than from any less interested motive, I was
about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when