is the language of the Hollanders, crisply and firmly. He is not given to
Gottverdummering. In addition to Dutch and English he speaks French
clearly and Belgian distinctly. I daresay he knows half a dozen languages
in all. He gives me the impression of a man who would never be at a loss,
in whatever circumstances he might find himself. A man capable of
extricating himself from the most difficult situation; and that with the
greatest ease. A man who bides his time; and improves the present by
separating, one after one, his monied fellow-prisoners from their
banknotes. He is, by all odds, the coolest player that I ever watched.
Nothing worries him. If he loses two hundred francs tonight, I am sure he
will win it and fifty in addition tomorrow. He accepts opponents without
distinction--the stupid, the wily, the vain, the cautious, the desperate,
the hopeless. He has not the slightest pity, not the least fear. In one
of my numerous notebooks I have this perfectly direct paragraph:

Card table: 4 stares play banque with 2 cigarettes (1 dead) & A
pipe the clashing faces yanked by a leanness of one candle
bottle-stuck (Birth of X) (where sits The Clever Man who
pyramids,) sings (mornings) "Meet Me..."

which specimen of telegraphic technique, being interpreted, means: Judas,
Garibaldi, and The Holland Skipper (whom the reader will meet _de
suite_)--Garibaldi's cigarette having gone out, so greatly is he
absorbed--play _banque_ with four intent and highly focussed individuals
who may or may not be The Schoolmaster, Monsieur Auguste, The Barber, and
Meme; with The Clever Man (as nearly always) acting as banker. The candle
by whose somewhat uncorpulent illumination the various physiognomies are
yanked into a ferocious unity is stuck into the mouth of a bottle. The
lighting of the whole, the rhythmic disposition of the figures, construct
a sensuous integration suggestive of The Birth of Christ by one of the