about $4,000, and lost it all in one fell swoop without turning a hair.
Then he 'plunged' with double that amount, but the best part of that, too,
went the same way. Nothing daunted, he next ventured $10,000. This time
fickle fortune favored him. He played on with growing confidence and when
his winnings amounted to the respectable sum of $75,000 he had the good
sense to quit and to leave the place despite the temptation to continue."



V


The "man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo," and gave occasion for the
song, was not named "Wells" and he was not an Englishman. He was an
American. I knew him well and soon after the event had from his own lips
the whole story.

He came to Monte Carlo with a good deal of money won at draw-poker in a
club at Paris and went away richer by some 100,000 francs (about $20,000)
than he came.

The catch-line of the song is misleading. There is no such thing as
"breaking the bank at Monte Carlo." This particular player won so fast upon
two or three "spins" that the table at which he played had to suspend until
it could be replenished by another "bank," perhaps ten minutes in point of
time. There used to be some twenty tables. Just how one man could play at
more than one of them at one time a "foreign correspondent," but only
a "foreign correspondent," might explain to the satisfaction of the
horse-marines.