It was
from his brother Gerald, and was written from Auld Reikie, the
name of a house in Scotland belonging to Lord Nidderdale's people.
'DEAR SILVER,
'I have got into a most awful scrape. That fellow Percival is
here, and Dolly Longstaff, and Nidderdale, and Popplecourt, and
Jack Hindes and Perry who is in the Coldstreams, and one or two
more, and there has been a lot of cards, and I have lost ever so
much money. I wouldn't mind so much but Percival has won it all,--a
fellow I hate; and now I owe him--three thousand four hundred
pounds! He has just told me he is hard up and that he wants the
money before the week is over. He can't be hard up because he has
won from everybody;--but of course I had to tell him that I would
pay him.
'Can you help me? Of course I know that I have been a fool.
Percival knows what he is about and plays regularly for money.
When I began I didn't think that I would lose above twenty or
thirty pounds. But it got on from one thing to another, and when I
woke this morning I felt I didn't know what to do with myself.
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