Chapters 19-20 Summary and Analysis

Jessica and Esmond receive enough in wedding gifts to live on for a while. Esmond is convinced that he has devised a system for winning at boule, a gambling game. They decide try out his system at the boule table in Dieppe. They buy camping equipment for the trip and borrow the car of a journalist for the trip. They finally arrive at the casino, eager to try their system. Their number keeps coming up, winning them small amounts so they can't test their system. They try another number and don't win again the entire evening. They lose all of their money in two hours.

They return to Dieppe without any money. They meet a friend, Roger Roughton, who buys them a drink, and the group sits and talks for a while. Roger has a huge house in Rotherhithe...