Thackeray has thought of this (what does he not think of ?) in his little book, "Dr.
Birch," where a young sycophant is represented saying to his friend, who has just received a hamper, "Hurrah, old fellow, I'LL LEND YOU MY KNIFE." This was considered so true to nature, on board a ship in which I once made a long voyage, that it passed into a proverb with us, and if any one was seen indulging in a luxury out of the way at dinner,--say an extra bottle of wine out of his private store,--half-a-dozen would cry out at once, "Hurrah, old fellow, I'll lend you my knife:" a modest way of requesting to be asked to take a glass of wine better than that supplied by the steward.
In the same way, George Hawker was treated by the men he had got round him as a man who had a little property that he had not got rid of, and as one who was to be used with some civility, until his money was gone, and he sank down to the level of the rest of them--to the level of living by his wits, if they were sharp enough to make a card or billiard sharper; or otherwise to find his level among the proscribed of society, let that be what it might.
And George's wits were not of the first order, or the second; and his manners and education were certainly not those of a gentleman, or likely to be useful in attracting such unwary persons as these Arabs of the metropolis preyed upon.

So it happened that when all his money was played away, which came to pass in a month or two, the higher and cleverer class of rascals began to look uncommonly cold upon him.
At first poor crushed Mary used to entertain of an evening some of the ELITE among the card-sharpers of London--men who actually could have spoken to a gentleman in a public place, and not have got kicked.

These men were polite, and rather agreeable, and one of them, a Captain Saxon, was so deferential to her, and seemed so entirely to understand her position, that she grew very fond of him, and was always pleased to see him at her house.
Though, indeed, she saw but little of any men who came there soon after any of them arrived, she used to receive a signal from George, which she dared not disobey, to go to bed.

And when she lay there, lonely and sleepless, she could detect, from the absence of conversation, save now and then a low, fierce oath, that they were playing desperately, and at such times she would lie trembling and crying.

Once or twice, during the time she remembered these meetings, they were rudely broken upon by oaths and blows, and on one particular occasion, she heard one of the gamesters, when infuriated, call her husband "a d----d swindling dog of a forger." In these times, which lasted but a few months, she began to reflect what a fool she had been, and how to gratify her fancy she had thrown from her everything solid and worth keeping in the world.