well, you might gamble as long as the casino remained open.  As for me—­baccarat[46] having no charms for me—­I was left alone outside by myself.  You refused to discuss even for five minutes the position to which you and your father had brought me.  My business was merely to pay your hotel expenses and your losses.  The slightest allusion to the ordeal awaiting me was regarded as a bore.  A new brand of champagne that was recommended to us had more interest for you.  On our return to London those of my friends who really desired my welfare implored me to retire abroad, and not to face an impossible trial.  You imputed mean motives to them for giving such advice and cowardice to me for listening to it.  You forced me to stay to brazen it out, if possible, in the box by absurd and silly perjuries.  At the end, of course, I was arrested, and your father became the hero of the hour.

As far as I can make out, I ended my friendship with you every three months regularly.  And each time that I did so you managed by means of entreaties, telegrams, letters, the interposition of your friends, the interposition of mine, and the like to induce me to allow you back.

But the froth and folly of our life grew often very wearisome to me:  it was only in the mire that we met:  and fascinating, terribly fascinating though the one[47] topic round which your talk invariably centered was, still at the end it became quite monotonous to me.  I was often bored to death by it, and accepted it as I accepted your passion for music halls, or your mania for absurd extravagance in eating and drinking, or any other of your to me less attractive characteristics, as a thing that is to say, that one simply had to put up with, a part of the high price one had to pay for knowing you.

When you came one Monday evening to my rooms, accompanied by two[48] of your friends, I found myself actually flying abroad next morning to escape from you, giving my family some absurd reason for my sudden departure, and leaving a false address with my servant for fear you might follow me by the next train....

Our friendship had always been a source of distress to my wife:  not merely because she had never liked you personally, but because she saw how your continual companionship altered me, and not for the better.

You started without delay for Paris, sending me passionate telegrams on the road to beg me to see you once, at any rate.  I declined.  You arrived in Paris late on a Saturday night and found a brief letter from me waiting for you at your hotel stating that I would not see you.  Next morning I received in Tite Street a telegram of some ten or eleven pages in length from you.  You stated in it that no matter what you had done to me you could not believe that I would absolutely decline to see you; you reminded me that for the sake of seeing me even for one hour you had travelled six days and six nights across Europe without stopping once on the way; you made what I must admit