been only deceiving myself, and with a
bitter disappointment I turned away. In
an instant I was attracted by a sudden
confusion and din of voices, all speaking
together. There was Grainger standing
up, his arms swinging, and gesticulating;
his mouth pouring out angry French.
Three croupiers were as vehemently expostulating,
and pointing, and emphasising
with their rakes. They have not paid him,
he says. They have cheated—swindled
him! The " gallery," as they call the
people standing round, take different sides;
and now steals up, as if from behind a tree,
that methodist- looking inspector, whose
skin is drawn so tight, and whose clothes
are so brushed, by machinery I think. He
quietly whispers Grainger, no one can learn
what he says; but I see his head nodding
like the bill of a sparrow. That man's
soul, I suspect, is as tight as his skin and
clothes. I suppose he is worth his six or
seven hundred a year to the administration.
What he says seems to awe Grainger
—already the gamblers are impatient at all
this tapage about a few wretched louis,
when there are little hillocks of gold, metallic
ant-hills, rising all over the table.

The croupier seizes the moment. The
cards are being dealt, and after that there
can be no more row. Here again Mephistopheles
and his crew have such an advantage.
For in analogous relations, the crowd
is sure to take part with one of themselves,
but no one here knows what the next coup
may bring; and in that expectancy, selfishness
grows impatient and sides with the
bank. I admire the dexterity with which
the meaner human passions are thus turned
to profit, and every little broil composed.

I turn away not a little disgusted. Certainly
the strangest and most dramatic of
scenes, and not unprofitable to study. See
here, for instance, a little dingy shop-
woman, with her two children over yonder
on the sofa, perhaps selling candles and
tobacco; in her brown thread gloves she
has her " little florin." The dull anxiety
in her German face is surprising. Down
goes the piece on "manque," and I see
her look away as the ball spins round.
Her heart, I am sure, almost stops. She
hears, but does not see, the result. The
smile of delight is exquisite—she tries
again—again succeeds—and again succeeds.
Now she is over at the sofa showing
her three prizes lying in the brown
thread gloves. How she had clutched at
them over the shoulder of the genteel
player sitting, and who shakes her off impatiently,
and half gives an execration. He
has forty louis before him; but she was
afraid that if she was not prompt, he or
some other greedy player would seize on
her little treasure. Then she returns full
of triumph, flushed with victory. She
watches and waits a favourable opportunity;
but Mephistopheles has seen her with
one of his grins—she loses her first piece, a
palpable agony flits across her face. She
tries again. Zero! Her little piece is in
prison; something like agony is in that
dull face. The next turn it is gone, she is
trying again, but will lose. Oh, if she had
been only content to remain as she was!
The very air must be dense with ejaculations
of this sort wrung from a thousand
disappointed hearts.

Over yonder I see the young girl sitting
disconsolate, and with such a wistful look
towards the table. She is waiting for
him. He is playing—Mephistopheles needn't
trouble himself about that business. It is
in fair train of itself, and will move on to
his wishes, of its own motion.

As I go out on the cool terrace some one
touches my arm.

"I owe you a hearty apology," he said,
"for my roughness. Once we begin there,
we lose all restraint."

I answered coldly, "that it was no
matter."

"But it is matter," he said angrily; "I
gave you a right to speak to me, and I
met you most unworthily. I had some
excuse, for the interruption brought about
the row that you saw. I suppose your
well-meant caution cost me only ten louis;
but say you are not angry."

There was something very winning in his
manner, and I could not resist him.

"But I thought you were going to give
this up?" I said. " You led me to hope I
had some influence."

During our absence a strange metamorphosis
had taken place in the gardens. They
had become crammed, and below us was a
dense mass of merry figures, but now all
lit up. In the daytime I had noted trees
dotted about that seemed like palm-trees
with drooping branches. It was a rare
"administration" device to line these with
gas- pipes, and hang white globes over
them, up and down. When they treat our
poor human nature as they do, it is only,
all of course, that they should deal with
the glorious fruits of the earth in the same
fashion. Gas and paint, and gilding, and
gewgaws, these make up this sunlight, and
grass greens, and variegated colours of
nature. To the fresh breath of Heaven,
they prefer the miasma of their crowded