"I am good for another two hundred louis," said the marquis.

"I should be glad to continue playing," I replied, "if I had not to go at
day-break"; and I thereupon left the room.

Just as I was going to bed, Desarmoises came and asked me to lend him
twelve louis. I had expected some such request, and I counted them out to
him. He embraced me gratefully, and told me that Madame Zeroli had sworn
to make me stay on at least for another day. I smiled and called Le Duc,
and asked him if my coachman knew that I was starting early; he replied
that he would be at the door by five o'clock.

"Very good," said Desarmoises, "but I will wager that you will not go for
all that."

He went out and I went to bed, laughing at his prophecy.

At five o'clock next morning the coachman came to tell me that one of the
horses was ill and could not travel. I saw that Desarmoises had had an
inkling of some plot, but I only laughed. I sent the man roughly about
his business, and told Le Duc to get me post-horses at the inn. The
inn-keeper came and told me that there were no horses, and that it would
take all the morning to find some, as the Marquis de Prie, who was
leaving at one o'clock in the morning, had emptied his stables. I
answered that in that case I would dine at Aix, but that I counted on his
getting me horses by two o'clock in the afternoon.

I left the room and went to the stable, where I found the coachman
weeping over one of his horses stretched out on the straw. I thought it