Lesson 4: Gambling

Thread 2:
As seen in the story, Ah Boh was very superstitious when it came to gambling. She was also addicted to it as she could forsake her mother-in-law and her own daily needs. She interpreted winning numbers from dreams, even taking the effort to pen down her dreams and figure out what they meant, like a spider represents the number three and so on. Weighing her employer's cat and even asking a month-old baby to help her pick numbers, these are just a few ways in which she satisfy her superstitious needs. She would even go so far as to rush to accident scenes and stand the gruesome sight just to copy down the car plate number of the cars involved in the accidents. These unfounded beliefs just led Ah Boh to gamble even more.

Thread 3:
The person who led Paul to his demise was his uncle, Oscar Cresswell. Although the person who introduced him to gambling was his gardener, Basset, Paul won his first race using ten shillings which Uncle Oscar had given him, causing him to think that Uncle Oscar was lucky. This caused Paul to ask Uncle Oscar to join him in horse betting and become partners. If Uncle Oscar disagreed to being partners, Paul might have given up on horse betting. In addition, when Uncle Oscar started winning money through Paul, he started to get greedier, and this encouraged Paul to continue with his gambling habits, eventually leading to his death.