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It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so utterly
fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance with the
vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become an adept
in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a means of
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 honourable 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 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
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