money by lunch-time, and is determined to "take it out in
reading," and the _Charivari_ slightly clenched in one hand by
the deaf old gentleman with the dingy ribbon of the Legion of
Honour, and the curly brown wig pushed up over one ear, who
always goes to sleep on the soft and luxurious velvet couches of
the Kursaal reading-room, from eleven till three, every day,
Sundays not excepted. The disappointed student of home or
foreign news wanders back to one of the apartments where
play is going, on. In fact, he does not know what to do
with himself until table-d'hote time. You know what the moral
bard, Dr Watts says:--

"Satan finds some mischief still,
For idle hands to do."

The unfledged gamester watches the play more narrowly. A stout
lady in a maroon velvet mantle, and a man with a bald head, a
black patch on his occiput, and gold spectacles, obligingly makes
way for him. He finds himself pressed against the very edge of
the table. Perhaps a chair--one of those delightfully
comfortable Kursaal chairs--is vacant. He is tired with doing
nothing, and sinks into the emolliently-cushioned _fauteuil_. He
fancies that he has caught the eye of the banker, or one of the
gentlemen of the _croupe_, and that they are meekly inviting him
to try his luck. "Well, there can't be much harm in risking a
florin," he murmurs. He stakes his silver-piece on a number or
a colour. He wins, we will say, twice or thrice. Perhaps he
quadruples his stake, nay, perchance, hits on the lucky number.
It turns up, and he receives thirty-five times the amount of his
_mise_. Thenceforth it is all over with that ingenuous