be adopted in conformity with foreign usage; and as they put on less clothing, so they might dispense with a little virtue also.

These be unpleasant reflections, Arthur, and I fear the coffee or the maraschino must have been amiss; in any case, away with them, and now for a stroll in the Cursaal!

CHAPTER XXIV

THE GAMBLING-ROOM

ENGLISHMEN keep their solemnity and respectful deportment for a church; foreigners reserve theirs for a gambling-table. Never was I more struck than by the decorous stillness and well-bred quietness of the room in which the highest play went forward. All the animation of French character, all the bluntness of German, all the impetuosity of the Italian or the violent rashness of the Russian, were calmed down and subdued beneath the influence of the great passion; and it seemed as though the Devil would not accept the homage of his votaries if not rendered with the well-bred manners of true gentlemen. It was not enough that men should be ruined-they should be ruined with easy propriety and thorough good-breeding. Whatever their hearts might feel, their faces should express no discomfiture; though their head should ache and their hand should tremble, the lip must be taught to say 'rouge' or 'noir' without any emotion.

I do not scruple to own that all this decorum was more dreadful than any scene of wild violence or excitement. The forced calmness, the pent-up passion, might be kept from any outbreak of words; but no training could completely subdue the emotions which speak by the bloodshot eye, the quivering cheek, the livid lip.

No man's heart is consecrated so entirely to one passion as a gambler's. Hope with him usurps the place of every

other feeling. Hope, however rude the shocks it meets from disappointment, however beaten and baffled, is still there; the flame may waste down to a few embers, but a single spark may live amid the ashes, yet it is enough to kindle up into a blaze before the breath of fortune. At first he lives but for moments like these; all his agonies, all his sufferings, all the torturings of a mind verging on despair are repaid by such brief intervals of luck. Yet each reverse of fate is telling on him heavily; the many disappointments to his wishes are sapping by degrees his confidence in fortune. His hope is dashed with fear; and now commences within him that struggle which is the most fearful man's nature can endure. The fickleness of chance, the waywardness of fortune, fill his mind with doubts and hesitations. Sceptical on the sources of his great passion, he becomes a doubter on every subject; he has seen his confidence so often at fault that he trusts nothing, and at last the ruling feature of his character is suspicion. When this rules paramount, he is a perfect gambler; from that moment he has done with the world and all its pleasures and pursuits; life offers to him no path of ambition, no goal to stimulate his energies. With a mock stoicism he affects to be superior to the race which other men are running, and laughs at the collisions of party and the contests of politics. Society, art, literature, love itself, have no attractions for him then; all excitements are feeble compared with the alternations of the gamingtable; and the chances of fortune in real life are too tame and too tedious for the impatience of a gambler.

I have no intention of winding up these few remarks by any moral episode of a gambler's life, though my memory could supply me with more than one such when the baneful passion became the ruin, not of a thoughtless, giddy youth, inexperienced and untried, but of one who had already won golden opinions from the world, and stood high in the ranks which lead to honour and distinction. These stories have, unhappily, a sameness which

mars the force of their lesson; they are listened to like the refrain of an old song, and from their frequency are disregarded. No; I trust in the fact that education and the tastes that flow from it are the best safeguards against a contagion of a heartless, soulless passion, and would rather warn my young countrymen at this place against the individuals than the system.

'Am I in your way, sir?' said a short, somewhat overdressed man, with red whiskers, as he made room for me to approach the play-table, with a politeness quite remarkable-'am I in your way, sir?'

'Not in the least; I beg you'll not stir.'

'Pray take my seat; I request you will.'

'By no means, sir; I never play. I was merely looking on.'

'Nor I either-or at least very rarely,' said he, rising with the air of a man who felt no pleasure in what was going forward. 'You don't happen to know that young gentleman in the light-blue frock and white vest yonder?' 'No, I never saw him before.'

'I'm sorry for it,' said he in a whisper; 'he has just lost seventy thousand francs, and is going the readiest way to treble the sum by his play. I'm certain he is English by his look and appearance, and it is a cruel thing, a very cruel thing, not to give him a word of caution here.'

The words, spoken with a tone of feeling, interested me much in the speaker, and already I was angry with myself for having conceived a dislike to his appearance and a prejudice against his style of dress.

'I see,' continued he, after a few seconds' pause-'I see you agree with me. Let us try if we can't find some one who may know him. Harry, I suppose?'

If Wycherley is here-you know Sir

'I have not that honour.'

Capital fellow-the best in the world. He's in the Blues, and always about Windsor or St. James's. He knows everybody; and if that young fellow be anybody,

he's sure to know him. Ah, how d'ye do, my lord?' continued he, with an easy nod, as Lord Colebrook passed. "Eh, Crotty, how goes it?' was the reply.

'You don't happen to know that gentleman yonder, my lord, do you?'

'Not I; who is he?'

'This gentleman and I were both anxious to learn who he is; he is losing a deal of money.'

'Eh, dropping his tin, is he? And you'd rather save him, Crotty? All right and sportsmanlike,' said his lordship, with a knowing wink, and walked on.

'A very bad one, indeed, I fear,' said Crotty, looking after him; but I didn't think him so heartless as that. Let us take a turn, and look out for Wycherley.'

Now, although I neither knew Wycherley nor his friend Crotty, I felt it a case where one might transgress a little on etiquette, and probably save a young man-he didn't look twenty-from ruin; and so, without more ado, I accompanied my new acquaintance through the crowded salons, elbowing and pushing along amid the hundreds that thronged there. Crotty seemed to know almost every one of a certain class; and as he went, it was a perpetual 'Comment ça va,' prince, count, or baron; or, 'How d'ye do, my lord?' or, Eh, Sir Thomas, you here?' etc.; when at length, at the side of a doorway leading into the supper-room, we came upon the Honourable Jack, with two ladies leaning upon his arms. One glance was enough; I saw they were the alderman's daughters. Sir Peter himself, at a little distance off, was giving directions to the waiter for supper.

Eh, Crotty, what are you doing to-night?' said Jack, with a triumphant look at his fair companions; 'any mischief going forward, eh?'

'Nothing half so dangerous as your doings,' said Crotty, with a very arch smile; 'have you seen Wycherley? Is he here?'

'Can't possibly say,' yawned out Jack; then leaning

over to me, he said in a whisper, 'Is the Princess Von Hohenstauvenof in the rooms?'

'I really don't know; I'm quite a stranger.'

'By Jove, if she is,' said he, without paying any attention to my reply, 'I'm floored, that's all. Lady Maude Beverley has caught me already. I wish you'd keep the Deverington girls in talk, will you?'

'You forget, perhaps, I have no acquaintance here.'

'Oh yes, by Jove, so I did! Glorious fun you must have of it! What a pace I'd go along if I wasn't known, eh! wouldn't I?'

'There's Wycherley-there he is,' said Crotty, taking me by the arm as he spoke, and leading me forward. 'Do me the favour to give me your name; I should like you to know Wycherley'-and scarcely had I pronounced it, when I found myself exchanging greetings with a large, wellbuilt, black-whiskered and moustached man of about forty. He was dressed in deep mourning, and looked in his manner and air very much the gentleman.

'Have you got up the party yet, Crotty?' said he, after our first salutations were over, and with a half-glance towards me.

'No, indeed,' said Crotty slowly; the fact is, I wasn't thinking of it. There's a poor young fellow yonder losing very heavily, and I wanted to see if you knew him; it would be only fair to'

'So it would; where is he?' interrupted the baronet, as he pushed through the crowd towards the play-room.

'I told you he was a trump,' said Crotty, as we followed him-'the fellow to do a good-natured thing at any

moment.'

While we endeavoured to get through after him, we passed close beside a small supper-table, where sat the alderman and his two pretty daughters, the Honourable Jack between them. It was evident from his boisterous gaiety that he had triumphed over all his fears of detection by any of the numerous fair ones he spoke of—his great