of a Montenegrin gentleman.

The Théatre in Algiers, like the "Opera" in Paris, organises every
Saturday night during the winter a Bal Masqué‚. This is, however,
a provincial version. There are few people in the dance-hall; the
occasional drifter from out of town, unemployed stevedores, some rustic
tarts, who are in business but who still retain from their more virtuous
days a faint aroma of garlic and saffron sauce... the real spectacle is
in the foyer, which has been converted for the occasion into a gambling
saloon.

A feverish, multicoloured crowd jostles about the long green cloths.
Algerian soldiers on leave, gambling their meagre pay. Moorish merchants
from the upper town. Negroes. Maltese. Colonists who have come a hundred
miles to wager the price of a cart or a pair of oxen on the turn of a
card. Pale, tense and anxious as they watch the game.

There are Algerian Jews, gambling en famille. The men in oriental
costume, the women in gold coloured bodices. They gather round the
table, chatter and and plan, count on their fingers, but play little.
From time to time, and only after long consultation, an elderly, bearded
patriarch goes to place the family stake. Then as long as play lasts
there is a concentration of dark hebraic eyes on the table, which
would seem to draw the gold pieces lying there as if by an invisible
thread....

Then there are the quarrels. Fights. Oaths in many languages. Knives
are drawn. A guard arrives. Money is missing.... In the midst of this
saturnalia wandered poor Tartarin, who had come that evening in search
of forgetfulness and peace of heart.