A Fateful Card Game
Entering a public house, the stranger suggests playing cards to stay awake, proposing whist despite claiming rarely to play. A fourth player joins from the fireside, and after cutting for partners, the narrator and this player win steadily against the stranger and Strap for threepence a game. The narrator grows confident as his luck continues, and stakes escalate. Soon the fortune reverses; the narrator and Strap lose their gains plus forty shillings of their own money. When their antagonists kindly offer another chance, Strap wisely advises departure, but the stranger who lost challenges the narrator to piquet for a crown. The narrator accepts, and within an hour loses every shilling he possesses, with Strap refusing to lend him anything.
Penniless Again
The remaining gentleman expresses sorrow at the narrator’s devastating loss, noting he had tried to signal the narrator to stop but was too absorbed in the game to notice. He questions Strap’s honesty based on suspicious behavior but accepts the narrator’s defense of his companion’s anxiety. After paying the eighteenpence reckoning, the gentleman departs warmly, leaving the narrator bereft of all money and overwhelmed with grief.
第十五章
This opening section of the chapter establishes that the narrator and Strap arrived in London less than 48 hours earlier and have already suffered a string of severe misfortunes, culminating in being robbed of all their money. The pair are making their way back to their lodging in a state of deep distress and tension.
Strap Moralises and Presents His Purse
On the walk to their lodging, Strap laments their terrible fortune, moralising about the value of prudence, and clarifies that when he earlier referred to a fool, he meant only himself. Once they reach their lodging, Strap, moved by the narrator’s despair, gives him his entire life savings (two half-guineas and half a crown) to support him, refusing to take the money back and insisting it is more appropriate for the gentleman narrator to rely on him than the reverse. The narrator is deeply touched by Strap’s selfless generosity.
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