attache of the English embassy, my Lord Deuceace, afterwards Viscount and Earl of Crabs in the English peerage, who was playing high; and it was after hearing of the passion of this young English nobleman that my uncle, then at Prague, determined to visit Berlin and engage him.  For there is a sort of chivalry among the knights of the dice-box:  the fame of great players is known all over Europe.  I have known the Chevalier de Casanova, for instance, to travel six hundred miles, from Paris to Turin, for the purpose of meeting Mr. Charles Fox, then only my Lord Holland’s dashing son, afterwards the greatest of European orators and statesmen.

It was agreed that I should keep my character of valet; that in the presence of strangers I should not know a word of English; that I should keep a good look-out on the trumps when I was serving the champagne and punch about; and, having a remarkably fine eyesight and a great natural aptitude, I was speedily able to give my dear uncle much assistance against his opponents at the green table.  Some prudish persons may affect indignation at the frankness of these confessions, but Heaven pity them!  Do you suppose that any man who has lost or won a hundred thousand pounds at play will not take the advantages which his neighbour enjoys?  They are all the same.  But it is only the clumsy fool who cheats; who resorts to the vulgar expedients of cogged dice and cut cards.  Such a man is sure to go wrong some time or other, and is not fit to play in the society of gallant gentlemen; and my advice to people who see such a vulgar person at his pranks is, of course, to back him while he plays, but never—­never to have anything to do with him.  Play grandly, honourably.  Be not, of course, cast down at losing; but above all, be not eager at winning, as mean souls are.  And, indeed, with all one’s skill and advantages, winning is often problematical; I have seen a sheer ignoramus that knows no more of play than of Hebrew, blunder you out of five thousand pounds in a few turns of the cards.  I have seen a gentleman and his confederate play against another and his confederate.  One never is secure in these cases:  and when one considers the time and labour spent, the genius, the anxiety, the outlay of money required, the multiplicity of bad debts that one meets with (for dishonourable rascals are to be found at the play-table, as everywhere else in the world), I say, for my part, the profession is a bad one; and, indeed, have scarcely ever met a man who, in the end, profited by it.  I am writing now with the experience of a man of the world.  At the time I speak of I was a lad, dazzled by the idea of wealth, and respecting, certainly too much, my uncle’s superior age and station in life.