There were only two sons:
myself, James, and my brother, Edward. I was ten years older than my
brother, and after my father died I sort of took the place of a father
to him, as an elder brother would. He was a bright, spirited boy, and
just one of the most beautiful creatures that ever lived. But there was
always a soft spot in him, and it was like mould in cheese, for it
spread and spread, and nothing that you could do would stop it. Mother
saw it just as clearly as I did, but she went on spoiling him all the
same, for he had such a way with him that you could refuse him nothing. I did all I could to hold him in, and he hated me for my pains. “At last he fairly got his head, and nothing that we could do would
stop him. He got off into New York, and went rapidly from bad to worse. At first he was only fast, and then he was criminal; and then, at the
end of a year or two, he was one of the most notorious young crooks in
the city. He had formed a friendship with Sparrow MacCoy, who was at the
head of his profession as a bunco-steerer, green goods-man, and general
rascal. They took to card-sharping, and frequented some of the best
hotels in New York. My brother was an excellent actor (he might have
made an honest name for himself if he had chosen), and he would take the
parts of a young Englishman of title, of a simple lad from the West, or
of a college undergraduate, whichever suited Sparrow MacCoy’s purpose. And then one day he dressed himself as a girl, and he carried it off so
well, and made himself such a valuable decoy, that it was their
favourite game afterwards. They had made it right with Tammany and with
the police, so it seemed as if nothing could ever stop them, for those
were in the days before the Lexow Commission, and if you only had a
pull, you could do pretty nearly everything you wanted. “And nothing would have stopped them if they had only stuck to cards
and New York, but they must needs come up Rochester way, and forge a
name upon a check. It was my brother that did it, though everyone knew
that it was under the influence of Sparrow MacCoy. I bought up that
check, and a pretty sum it cost me. Then I went to my brother, laid it
before him on the table, and swore to him that I would prosecute if he
did not clear out of the country. At first he simply laughed. I could
not prosecute, he said, without breaking our mother’s heart, and he knew
that I would not do that. I made him understand, however, that our
mother’s heart was being broken in any case, and that I had set firm on
the point that I would rather see him in a Rochester gaol than in a New
York hotel. So at last he gave in, and he made me a solemn promise that
he would see Sparrow MacCoy no more, that he would go to Europe, and
that he would turn his hand to any honest trade that I helped him to
get. I took him down right away to an old family friend, Joe Willson,
who is an exporter of American watches and clocks, and I got him to give
Edward an agency in London, with a small salary and a 15 per cent. commission on all business. His manner and appearance were so good that
he won the old man over at once, and within a week he was sent off to
London with a case full of samples. “It seemed to me that this business of the check had really given my
brother a fright, and that there was some chance of his settling down
into an honest line of life. My mother had spoken with him, and what she
said had touched him, for she had always been the best of mothers to
him, and he had been the great sorrow of her life. But I knew that this
man Sparrow MacCoy had a great influence over Edward, and my chance of
keeping the lad straight lay in breaking the connection between them. I
had a friend in the New York detective force, and through him I kept a
watch upon MacCoy. When within a fortnight of my brother’s sailing I
heard that MacCoy had taken a berth in the _Etruria_, I was as certain
as if he had told me that he was going over to England for the purpose
of coaxing Edward back again into the ways that he had left. In an
instant I had resolved to go also, and to put my influence against
MacCoy’s. I knew it was a losing fight, but I thought, and my mother
thought, that it was my duty. We passed the last night together in
prayer for my success, and she gave me her own Testament that my father
had given her on the day of their marriage in the Old Country, so that I
might always wear it next my heart. “I was a fellow-traveller, on the steamship, with Sparrow MacCoy, and
at least I had the satisfaction of spoiling his little game for the
voyage. The very first night I went into the smoking-room, and found him
at the head of a card table, with half-a-dozen young fellows who were
carrying their full purses and their empty skulls over to Europe. He was
settling down for his harvest, and a rich one it would have been. But I
soon changed all that. “‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘are you aware whom you are playing with?’

  “‘What’s that to you? You mind your own business!’ said he, with an
oath. “‘Who is it, anyway?’ asked one of the dudes. “‘He’s Sparrow MacCoy, the most notorious cardsharper in the States.’

  “Up he jumped with a bottle in his hand, but he remembered that he was
under the flag of the effete Old Country, where law and order run, and
Tammany has no pull. Gaol and the gallows wait for violence and murder,
and there’s no slipping out by the back door on board an ocean liner. “‘Prove your words, you——!’ said he. “‘I will!’ said I. ‘If you will turn up your right shirt-sleeve to the
shoulder, I will either prove my words or I will eat them.’

  “He turned white and said not a word. You see, I knew something of his
ways, and I was aware that part of the mechanism which he and all such
sharpers use consists of an elastic down the arm with a clip just above
the wrist. It is by means of this clip that they withdraw from their
hands the cards which they do not want, while they substitute other
cards from another hiding-place. I reckoned on it being there, and it
was. He cursed me, slunk out of the saloon, and was hardly seen again
during the voyage. For once, at any rate, I got level with Mister
Sparrow MacCoy. “But he soon had his revenge upon me, for when it came to influencing
my brother he outweighed me every time. Edward had kept himself straight
in London for the first few weeks, and had done some business with his
American watches, until this villain came across his path once more. I
did my best, but the best was little enough. The next thing I heard
there had been a scandal at one of the Northumberland Avenue hotels: a
traveller had been fleeced of a large sum by two confederate
card-sharpers, and the matter was in the hands of Scotland Yard. The
first I learned of it was in the evening paper, and I was at once
certain that my brother and MacCoy were back at their old games. I
hurried at once to Edward’s lodgings.