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... ut you will lose on the
transaction what would frighten even a Jew."
"Rubbish! I am DETERMINED to retrieve my losses. Take me
away, and call those fools of bearers."
I wheeled the chair out of the throng, and, the bearers making
their appearance, we left the tapestry canvas sleepy teddy Casino.
"Hurry, hurry!" commanded the Grandmother. "Show me the
nearest way to the money-changer's. Is it far?"
"A couple of steps, Madame."
At the turning from the square into the Avenue we came face to
face with the whole of our party--the General, De Griers, Mlle.
Blanche, and her mother. Only Polina and Mr. Astley were
absent.
"Well, well, well! " exclaimed the Grandmother. "But we have
no time to stop. What do you want? I can't talk to you here."
I dropped behind a little, and immediately was pounced upon by
De Griers.
"She has lost this morning's winnings," I whispered, "and
also twelve thousand gulden of her original money. At the
present moment we are going to get some bonds tapestry canvas sleepy teddy changed."
De Griers stamped his foot with vexation, and hastened to
communicate the tidings to the General. Meanwhile we
continued to wheel the old lady along.
"Stop her, stop her," whispered the General in consternation.
"You had better try and stop her yourself," I returned--also in
a whisper.
"My good mother," he said as he approached her, "--my good
mother, pray let, let--" (his voice was beginning to tremble
and sink) "--let us hire a carriage, and go for a drive. Near
here there is an enchanting view to be obtained. We-we-we were
just coming to invite you to go and see it."
"Begone with you and your views!" said the Grandmother
angrily as she waved him away.
"And there are trees there, and we could have tea under them,"
continued the General--now in utter despair.
"Nous boirons du lait, sur l'herbe fraiche," added De Griers
with the snarl almost of a wild beast.
"Du lait, de l'herbe fraiche"--the idyll, the ideal of the
Parisian bourgeois--his whole outlook upon "la nature et la
verite"!
"Have done with you and your milk!" cried the old lady. "Go
and stuff YOURSELF as much as you like, but my stomach simply
recoils from the tapestry canvas sleepy teddy idea. What are you stopping for? I have
nothing to say to you."
"Here we are, Madame," I announced. "Here is the
moneychanger's office."
I entered to get the securities changed, while the tapestry canvas sleepy teddy Grandmother tapestry canvas sleepy teddy
remained outside in the porch, and the rest waited at a
little distance, in doubt as to their best course of action.
At length the old lady turned such an angry stare upon them
that they departed along the road towards the Casino.
The process of changing involved complicated calculations
which soon necessitated my return to the Grandmother for
instructions.
"The thieves!" she exclaimed as she clapped her hands
together. "Never mind, though. Get the documents cashed--No;
send the banker out to me," she added as an afterthought.
"Would one of the clerks do, Madame?"
"Yes, one of the clerks. The thieves!"
The clerk consented to come out when he perceived that he was
being asked for by an old lady who was too infirm to walk;
after which the Grandmother began to upbraid him at length,
and with great vehemence, for his alleged usuriousness, and
to bargain with him in a mixture of Russian, French, and
German--I acting as interpreter. Meanwhile, the grave-faced
official eyed us both, and silently nodded his head. At the
Grandmother, in particular, he gazed with a curiosity which
almost bordered upon rudeness. At length, too, he smiled.
"Pray recollect yourself!" cried the old lady. "And may my
money choke you! Alexis Ivanovitch, tell him that we can
easily repair to someone else."
"The clerk says that others will give you even less than he."
Of what the ultimate calculations consisted I do not exactly
remember, but at all events they were alarming. Receiving
twelve thousand florins in gold, I took also the statement of
accounts, and carried it out to the Grandmother.
"Well, well," she said, "I am no accountant. Let us hurry
away, hurry away." And she waved the paper aside.
"Neither upon that accursed zero, however, nor upon that
equally accursed red do I mean to stake a cent," I muttered to
myself as I entered the Casino.
This time I did all I could to persuade the old lady to stake
as little as possible--saying that a turn would come in the
chances when she would be at liberty to stake more. But she
was so impatient that, though at first she agreed to do as I
suggested, nothing could stop her when once she had begun. By
way of prelude she won stakes of a hundred and two hundred
gulden.
"There you are!" she said as she nudged me. "See what we
have won! Surely it would be worth our while to stake four
thousand instead of a hundred, for we might win another four
thousand, and then--! Oh, it was YOUR fault before--all your
fault!"
I felt greatly put out as I watched her play, but I tapestry canvas sleepy teddy decided to
hold my tongue, and to give her no more advice.
Suddenly De Griers appeared on the scene. It seemed that all
this while he and his companions had been standing beside us--
though I noticed that Mlle. Blanche had withdrawn a little
from the rest, and was engaged in flirting with the Prince.
Clearly the General was greatly put out at this. Indeed, he
was in a perfect agony of vexation. But Mlle. was careful
never to look his way, though he did his best to attract her
notice. Poor General! By turns his face blanched and reddened,
and he was trembling to such an extent that he could scarcely
follow the old lady's play. At length Mlle. and the Prince
took their departure, and the General followed them.
"Madame, Madame," sounded the honeyed accents of De Griers as
he leant over to whisper in the Grandmother's ear. "That
stake will never win. No, no, it is impossible," he added in
Russian with a writhe. "No, no!"
"But why not?" asked the Grandmother, turning round. "Show
me what I ought to do."
Instantly De Griers burst into a babble of French as he
advised, jumped about, declared that such and such chances
ought to be waited for, and started to make calculations of
figures.
All this he addressed to me in my capacity as
translator--tapping the table the while with his finger, and
pointing hither and thither.
At length he seized a pencil, and
began to reckon sums on paper until he had exhausted the
Grandmother's patience.
"Away with you!" she interrupted. "You talk sheer nonsense,
for, though you keep on saying 'Madame, Madame,' you haven't
the least notion what ought to be done. Away with you, I say!"
"Mais, Madame," cooed De Griers--and straightway started
afresh with his fussy instructions.
"Stake just ONCE, as he advises," the Grandmother said to me,
"and then we shall see what we shall see.
Of course, his
stake MIGHT win."
As a matter of fact, De Grier's one object was to distract the
old lady from staking large sums; wherefore, he now suggested
to her that she should stake upon certain numbers, singly and
in groups. Consequently, in accordance with his instructions, I
staked a ten-gulden piece upon several odd numbers in the
first twenty, and five ten-gulden pieces upon certain groups
of numbers-groups of from twelve to eighteen, and from
eighteen to twenty-four. The total staked amounted to 160
gulden.
The wheel revolved. "Zero!" cried the croupier.
We had lost it all!
"The fool!" cried the old lady as she turned upon De Griers.
"You infernal Frenchman, to think that you should advise!
Away with you! Though you fuss and fuss, you don't even know
what you're talking about."
Deeply offended, De Griers shrugged his shoulders, favoured
the Grandmother with a look of contempt, and departed. For
some time past he had been feeling ashamed of being seen in
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