And now he noted that the wheel had stopped the last four times on the
odd. He jerked a five-dollar gold piece out of his pocket and placed it
on the even. The wheel spun, clicked to a stop, and the rake of the
croupier slicked his five dollars away across the smooth-worn top of the
table.

How very simple! But certainly the wheel must stop on the even this time,
having struck the odd five times in a row. He placed ten dollars on the
even.

He did not feel that it was gambling. He had never gambled in his life,
for Elizabeth Cornish had raised him to look on gambling not as a sin,
but as a crowning folly. However, this was surely not gambling. There was
no temptation. Not a word had been spoken to him since he entered the
place. There was no excitement, no music, none of the drink and song of
which he had heard so much in robbing men of their cooler senses. It was
only his little system that tempted him on.

He did not know that all gambling really begins with the creation of a
system that will beat the game. And when a man follows a system, he is
started on the most cold-blooded gambling in the world.

Again the disk stopped, and the ball clicked softly and the ten dollars
slid away behind the rake of the man on the stool. This would never do!
Fifteen dollars gone out of a total capital of fifty! He doubled with
some trepidation again. Thirty dollars wagered. The wheel spun--the money
disappeared under the rake.

Terry felt like setting his teeth. Instead, he smiled. He drew out his