wheel, that they may try another fall with Fortune. Before each
seated player are arranged precious little piles of gold and
silver, a card printed in black and red, and a long pin,
wherewith to prick out a system of infallible gain. The
croupiers take their seats and unpack the strong box; rouleaux--
long metal sausages composed of double and single florins,--
wooden bowls brimming over with gold Frederics and Napoleons,
bank notes of all sizes and colours, are arranged upon the
black leather compartment, ruled over by the company's officers;
half-a-dozen packs of new cards are stripped of their paper
cases, and swiftly shuffled together; and when all these
preliminaries, watched with breathless anxiety by the surrounding
speculators, have been gravely and carefully executed, the chief
croupier looks round him--a signal for the prompt investment of
capital on all parts of the table--chucks out a handful of cards
from the mass packed together convenient to his hand--ejaculates
the formula, "Faites le jeu!" and, after half a minute's pause,
during which he delicately moistens the ball of his dealing
thumb, exclaims "Le jeu est fait, rien ne va plus," and
proceeds to interpret the decrees of fate according to the
approved fashion of Trente et Quarante. A similar scene is
taking place at the Roulette table--a goodly crop of florins,
with here and there a speck of gold shining amongst the silver
harvest, is being sown over the field of the cloth of green, soon
to be reaped by the croupier's sickle, and the pith ball is being
dropped into the revolving basin that is partitioned off into so
many tiny black and red niches. For the next twelve hours the
processes in question are carried on swiftly and steadily,
without variation or loss of time; relays of croupiers are laid
on, who unobtrusively slip into the places of their fellows when