He looked up at me out of his mournful eyes and murmured, “Patienza, lieber Herr.”  Then spying a vacant place behind the chairs at the baccarat table, he darted thither, and I followed in his wake.  There must have been about a couple of hundred louis in the bank, which was held by a dissipated, middle-aged man who, having once been handsome in a fleshy way, had run to fat.  His black hair, cropped short, stood up like a shoebrush, and when he leaned back in his chair a roll of flesh rose above his collar.  I disliked the fellow for his unhealthiness, and for the hard mockery in his puffy eyes.  The company seemed fairly homogeneous in its raffishness, though here and there appeared a thin, aristocratic face, with grey moustache and pointed beard, and the homely anxious visage of a small tradesman.  But in bulk it looked an ugly, seedy crowd, with unwashed bodies and unclean souls.  I noticed an Italian or two, and a villainous Englishman with a face like that of a dilapidated horse.  A glance at the table plastered with silver and gold showed me that they were playing with a five-franc minimum.

Anastasius drew a handful of louis from his pocket and staked one.  I staked a five-franc piece.  The cards were dealt, the banker exposed a nine, the highest number, and the croupier’s flat spoon swept the table.  A murmur arose.  The banker was having the luck of Satan.

“He always protects me, the good fellow,” laughed the banker, who had overheard the remark.

Again we staked, again the hands were dealt.  Our tableau or end of the table won, the other lost.  The croupier threw the coins in payment.  I let my double stake lie, and so did Anastasius.  At the next coup we lost again.  The banker stuffed his winnings into his pocket and declared a suite.  The bank was put up at auction, and was eventually knocked down to the same personage for fifty louis.  The horse-headed Englishman cried “banco,” which means that he would play the banker for the whole amount.  The hands were dealt, the Englishman lost, and the game started afresh with a hundred louis in the bank.  The proceedings began to bore me.  Even if my experience of life had not suggested that scrupulous fairness and honour were not the guiding principles of such an assemblage, I should have taken little interest in the game.  I am a great believer in the wholesomeness of compounding for sins you are inclined to by damning those you have no mind to.  It aids the nice balance of life.  And gambling is one of the sins I delight to damn.  The rapid getting of money has never appealed to me, who have always had sufficient for my moderately epicurean needs, and least of all did it appeal to me now when I was on the brink of my journey to the land where French gold and bank notes were not in currency.  I repeat, therefore, that I was bored.

“If the perils of the adventure don’t begin soon, my dear Professor,” I whispered, “I shall go to sleep standing.”