—he was beyond contemptuous charity—but as
"horrible old scamp." The miserable man had
no one to talk to now, but a few tavern waiters,
gaming-house employés, dunning landladies,
billiard-markers, police agents, and commissaries
of police. His acquaintance with the two last-
named classes was involuntary. The police
were well aware of him. "Le nommé Blunt"
was down in the blackest books of Rue de
Jérusalem. He was too old and drunken to be
made useful as a spy. The alguazils quietly
waited until they could catch him in flagrant
délit, and cart him off to the galleys as a robber.
He had ceased to have a regular lodging, and
slept by the night in the worst "garnis" of the
worst quarters, at fifteen sous. When he had
no money, he prowled about the Champs Elysées.
When he won, he would have a drinking-bout at
the wine-shops in the Halles which are kept open
all night, and would be an insolent Amphitryon
to market-gardeners and sergents de ville, who
scoffed at him while they drank at his cost.
But these festive evenings were rare. He had
reached, to all appearance, that stage in the
gambler career, when a man never wins heavily,
and when Fortune permits him only to pick up
sufficient from the green cloth to save him from
sheer starvation, and enable him to support life
while she tortures him. There were very few even
tenth-rate cafés and estaminets, now, where he
was welcome, or allowed to brawl and drivel over
his brandy, or his absinthe. There is a phase in
rascaldom when the rascal is even ostracised by
his mates. Blunt had become a solitary rogue.
"Mauvais garnement," cried the French raffs;
"A thorough rip," sneered the English raffs who
knew him. So he was left alone.

"And yet," he would moan piteously to
himself, sometimes, "I have a brother in India who
must be worth millions. Where is he? How
came he to leave the service? Is he dead? I
have written hundreds of letters to him in vain.
Where is George Blunt?"

There was one place, indeed, of which he was
free—one hostelry open for twelve hours out of
the twenty-four—one caravanserai where he
could enter. So long as he had a hat and coat
they would admit him to the gaming-tables.
The line was drawn at caps and blouses. So long
as hats were hats and coats coats they were
reckoned as belonging to the "mise décente," and
their wearers were entitled to be called, in
gaming-house parlance, "Messieurs de la Galerie."

This precious Gentleman of the Gallery then,
on the morning in question, went up the well-
worn stairs of Frascati's, and surrendered his hat
and stick to the janitor at the door who knew
Blunt well, and was, indeed, an ancient punter,
on whom, when utterly broken down, the
administration had take compassion, and provided
with a snug refuge for his declining days. He
had seen men and cities, and knew all the folly
of betting against the black, and all the madness
of backing the red. And accordingly, once a
month when his scanty wages were paid him,
and he had a holiday, he very carefully backed
the red and lost every sou at the gaming-table,
and, next day, went back contentedly to take
care of the hats and sticks.

A clean old gentleman in a shirt-frill, blue
spectacles, nankeen pantaloons, and speckled
grey stockings—the uncle in a vaudeville kind of
gentleman—whispered behind his signet-ringed
hand, as Blunt shambled towards the roulette-
table, to a stately military made-up personage,
with a tremendous spiked moustache, and the
ribbons of half a dozen foreign orders at his
button-hole:

"He was in luck yesterday. He backed the
numbers, always putting a five-franc piece à
cheval—on horseback. He must have won at
least five louis. Had he been able to play gold
instead of silver, he would have netted a
hundred."

"He will back the same number, you will see,
to-day, and lose," quoth the military personage,
sententiously. "I am sick of seeing that old
scoundrel. I long to behold him sitting between
two gendarmes on the benches of the court of
assize."

Neither the clean old gentleman nor the
military personage ever risked so much as a five-
franc piece at the tables. It was strictly against
their orders to play. Their business was to
watch those who gambled; and there were others
there, whose business it was to watch them.
Both were spies of the police. But when the
toils of the day were over, and they were off duty,
the police gentry, and some select acquaintances
among the croupiers, and the liveried lacqueys
(whose services were perfunctory, and who were
no more real footmen than the "greencoats" of
the playhouse), would adjourn to a quiet wine-
shop and gamble away their leisure hours in
comfort and joy.

Blunt played from noon till four o'clock.
Superstitious, as all gamblers are, he had dreamed,
on three successive nights, that thirty-three was
to be his lucky number at roulette. Understand,
that, had he put a piece of money, or a
banknote on this number, and, when the ball had
ceased revolving in the wheel, the number thirty-
three, where it had halted, been proclaimed, he
would have received thirty-five times his stake.
But there were, of course, no less than six-and-
thirty chances against him; and, his dream
notwithstanding, his capital was too small (he had
three louis left after a night at the Halle) to risk
even the smallest amount "en plein," or in full,
on the number. He put his stakes on horseback:
that is to say, on the yellow boundary line
between the square numbered thirty-three, and
the square numbered thirty-four: so that, according
to the rules, if either of those numbers turned
up, he was entitled to receive half thirty-five, or
seventeen times his stake. Sometimes he shifted
his piece, and put it, still on horseback, between
thirty-three and thirty-two, thus doubling his
chances of winning. Oh! he was cunning.

He began with a five-franc piece; won a little,