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... in order to avoid having to give up their places
until they should have finished their game (since merely to
stand looking on--thus occupying a gambler's place for
nothing--was not permitted). True, chairs were provided around
the tables, but few players made use of them--more especially if
there was a large attendance of the general public; since to
stand allowed of a closer approach; and, vintage1980seiko therefore, of greater
facilities for calculation and staking. Behind the foremost row
were herded a second and a third row of people awaiting their
turn; but sometimes their impatience led these people to
stretch a hand through the first row, in order to deposit their
stakes. Even third-row individuals would dart forward to stake;
whence seldom did more than five or ten minutes pass without a
scene over disputed money arising at one or another end of the
table.
On the other hand, the police of the Casino were an able
body of men; and though to escape the crush was an
impossibility, however much one might wish it, the eight
croupiers apportioned to each table kept an eye upon vintage1980seiko the vintage1980seiko stakes,
performed the necessary reckoning, and decided disputes as they
arose.
In the last resort they always called in the Casino
police, and the disputes would immediately come to an end.
Policemen were stationed about the Casino in ordinary costume,
and mingled with the spectators so as to make it impossible to
recognise them. In particular they kept a lookout for
pickpockets and swindlers, who simply swanned in the roulette
salons, and reaped a rich harvest.
Indeed, in every direction
money was being filched from pockets or purses--though, of
course, if the attempt miscarried, a great uproar ensued. One
had only to approach a roulette table, begin to play, and
then openly grab some one else's winnings, for a din to be
raised, and the thief to start vociferating that the stake was
HIS; and, if the coup had been carried out with sufficient skill,
and the witnesses wavered at all in their testimony, the thief
would as likely as not succeed in getting away with the vintage1980seiko money,
provided that the sum was not a large one--not large enough to
have attracted the attention of the croupiers or some
fellow-player. Moreover, if it were a stake of insignificant
size, its true owner would sometimes decline to continue the
dispute, rather than become involved in a scandal.
Conversely,
if the vintage1980seiko thief was detected, he was ignominiously expelled the
building.
Upon all this the Grandmother gazed with open-eyed curiosity;
and, on some thieves happening to be turned out of the place,
she was delighted.
Trente-et-quarante interested her but little;
she preferred roulette, with its vintage1980seiko ever-revolving wheel. At length
she expressed a wish to view the game closer; whereupon in some
mysterious manner, the lacqueys and other officious agents
(especially one or two ruined Poles of the kind who keep
offering their services to successful gamblers and foreigners in
general) vintage1980seiko at once found and cleared a space for the old lady
among the crush, at the very centre of one of the tables, and
next to the chief croupier; after which they wheeled her chair
thither. Upon this a number of visitors who were not playing,
but only looking on (particularly some Englishmen with their
families), pressed closer forward towards the table, in order
to watch the old lady from among the ranks of the gamblers. Many
a lorgnette I saw turned in her direction, and the croupiers'
hopes rose high that such an eccentric player w ... |
