down captain. "You're so drunk and so desperate,
that something tells me that thirty-three or
zero will turn up."

Blunt took the proffered louis, and tried, as
steadily as he could, to roll it on end toward
the compartment marked zero, which is close to
the outer circumference of the wheel, in the
middle of the table. But his aim, accurate
enough when sober, failed him now. The coin
stopped at the compartment marked "four,"
oscillated, and fell flat.

"For zero?" a croupier said inquiringly. He
was close to the louis, and would have gently
propelled it with his rake towards the designated
spot; but Blunt, with a screech, forbade him.

"Let it be there," he said. "The devil will
take care of his own."

"A thousand francs on thirty-three, and a
single louis on zero," whispered the clean old
gentleman; the fellow must be mad. Any
way he must lose."

The pillar revolved, the ball whizzed round
and stopped. Then the banker called out:

"ZERO."

The rakes gathered in Blunt's thousand franc
note and the poor broken-down captain's louis.
He did not care to ask his debtor when he would
repay him. Justice Shallow had, perhaps, about
as good a chance of being repaid the thousand
pounds which Sir John Falstaff owed him. The
poor broken-down captain was a philosopher.
All he said was this:

"The imbecile! Why did he not insure on zero
as I told him? At least thirty-five louis would
have been saved out of the wreck, and some capital
would have been left for future operations."

Blunt was too old a hand to fall beneath the
table in a fit, to tear his hair, or to beat his
breast. He staggered away to the buffet, and
asked the waiter to let him have a glass of brandy
on credit. The superintendent nodded assent,
and they gave him the liquor. He had lost so very
largely as to be entitled to that trifling pourboire.
Frascati had some bowels of compassion.

"Besides," he said, as he drained the glass,
"it's only for a little time. I shall pay presently.
There's a fellow in the room owes me five louis.
Has anybody seen him? A handsome fellow with
curly hair."

He had reached that stage of intoxication not
uncommon with habitual topers, when an
additional glass of liquor rather sobers than stupifies.
Blunt felt, for a moment, himself again. The
lacqueys kept a keen eye upon him to turn him
out (now that he was ruined) if he attempted to
create a disturbance; but he went very
composedly to and fro and up and down, from the
roulette to the trente-et-quarante, seeking for the
fellow who owed him five louis.

He found the fellow at last. Mr. Edgar
Greyfaunt's face was flushed and his eyes
sparkling. A pile of notes and gold was before
him. He was winning largely.

"Hallo! old gentleman," he cried, as Blunt
came up with pendent lip and bloodshot eyes.

"Cleaned out, I suppose?"

"Ay!"

"Ah! you backed your luck a little too often.
You'd better have been contented with a little.
What a lot you were winning, to be sure. Stop!
don't I owe you five louis? Here they are. And
oblige me by going to another table, and playing
by yourself, for, if you back my luck, it's sure to
turn, and I shall lose."

Blunt thrust the money in his pocket, and
turned on his heel in dudgeon. The young
man's voice and manner seemed to him
inexpressibly insolent. He skulked to the roulette-
table, and changed his five pieces of gold into
twenty pieces of five francs each. He wished to
protract his agony as long as possible.

He played cautiously, timidly, nervously—
eschewing the numbers altogether, waiting
sometimes for a dozen rounds before there
appeared what he deemed a favourable chance,
shifting his paltry stakes, now to red, now to
black, now to odd, now to even, now to over, now
to under. At one time he had scraped together
some sixty or seventy francs; but luck again
departed from him, and, as the clock struck ten,
he had lost the last of his five louis.

He found out Edgar Greyfaunt again, who,
still winning, was absorbed in the game. Blunt
logged his elbow.

"I am cleaned out again," he pleaded humbly.
"When you were too, I lent you five louis, and
those I have had back, and spent. Lend me ten
louis now, for Heaven's sake. There is only
another hour left to play. Let me have one
more chance."

"Go to the deuce!" cried Edgar Greyfaunt,
pettishly, as he gathered in a handful of louis he
had won.

"Only five louis, then," urged the miserable
old man. " Make it five louis, for mercy's sake,
and you shall have them back in five minutes. I
didn't wait to be asked when I lent you the
money."

"The more fool you," Mr. Greyfaunt coolly
responded. "Don't bother me! You're making
me play, all at sixes and sevens. Stop! here's
a five-franc piece. It will get you a bed, and
some breakfast in the morning."

The ancient spirit of Francis Blunt, Esquire—
the remembrance that he had once been a
gentleman—rose for a single moment, and chased
away the miasma of misery, the fumes of brandy
and tobacco, which hung about him as a mantle.
By a mechanical movement, he clutched at the
proffered dole, but, lifting his shaking hand, he
flung it at the head of Mr. Edgar Greyfaunt,
accompanying the act by a storm of fierce
invective addressed to that young gentleman.

The beggared gamester was speedily seized
round the body by two of the powdered footmen.
It was intolerable that the decorous
conduct of so important a game as trente-et-
quarante should be interrupted by the frenzied
violence of this tattered and disreputable
person. The entrance of the saloons must be