He tells his own adventures as a card-sharper, bully, and liar; as a heartless wretch, who had neither love nor gratitude in his composition; who had no sense even of loyalty; who regarded gambling as the highest occupation to which a man could devote himself, and fraud as always justified by success; a man possessed by all meannesses except cowardice.

And the reader is so carried away by his frankness and energy as almost to rejoice when he succeeds, and to grieve with him when he is brought to the ground.
The man is perfectly satisfied as to the reasonableness,--I might almost say, as to the rectitude,--of his own conduct throughout.

He is one of a decayed Irish family, that could boast of good blood.

His father had obtained possession of the remnants of the property by turning Protestant, thus ousting the elder brother, who later on becomes his nephew's confederate in gambling.

The elder brother is true to the old religion, and as the law stood in the last century, the younger brother, by changing his religion, was able to turn him out.