advance at his hotel for his board and lodging, and at the
bathing-house for his baths, for the time he intended to stay.
The remaining contents of his purse he thought fairly his own;
and he went of course to the table all the gayer for the license
he had taken of his conscience. On fortune showing him a few
favours, he came to me in high spirits, with a purse full of
Napoleons, and a resolute determination to keep them by venturing
no more; but a gamester can no more be stationary than the tide
of a river, and on the evening he was put out of suspense by
having not a Napoleon left, and nothing to console but
congratulation on his foresight, and the excellent supper
which was the fruit of it.'

Towards the end of the last century Aix-la-Chapelle was a great
rendezvous of gamblers. The chief banker there paid a thousand
louis per annum for his license. A little Italian adventurer
once went to the place with only a few louis in his pocket, and
played crown stakes at Hazard. Fortune smiled on him; he
increased his stakes progressively; in twenty-four hours won
about L4000. On the following day he stripped the bank
entirely, pocketing nearly L10,000. He continued to play for
some days, till he was at last reduced to a single louis! He now
obtained from a friend the loan of L30, and once more resumed
his station at the gaming table, which he once more quitted with
L10,000 in his pocket, and resolved to leave it for ever. The
arguments of one of the bankers, however, who followed him to his
inn, soon prevailed over his resolution, and on his return to the
gaming table he was stripped of his last farthing. He went to
his lodgings, sold his clothes, and by that means again appeared
at his old haunt, for the half-crown stakes, by which he