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YOU must tell him, you must tell him,"--here she
nudged me again--"for I have not the least notion where
Potapitch is. Sortez, sortez," she shouted to the young man,
until I leant over in her direction and whispered in her ear
that no shouting was allowed, nor even loud speaking, since to
do so disturbed the calculations of the players, and might lead
to our being ejected.
"How provoking!" she retorted. "Then the young man is done
for! I suppose he WISHES to be ruined. Yet I could not bear to
see him have to return it all.
What a fool the fellow is!" and
the old lady turned sharply away.
On the left, among the players at the other half of the table, a
young lady was playing, with, beside her, a dwarf.
Who the dwarf
may have been--whether a relative or a person whom she took with
her to act as a foil--I do not know; but I had noticed her there
on previous occasions, since, everyday, she entered the Casino
at one o'clock precisely, and departed at two--thus playing for
exactly one hour. Being well-known to the attendants, she always
had a seat provided for her; and, taking some gold and a few
thousand-franc notes out of her pocket--would begin quietly,
coldly, and after much calculation, to stake, and mark down the
figures in pencil on a paper, as though striving to work out a
system according to which, at given moments, the odds might
group themselves. Always she staked large coins, and either lost
or won one, two, or three thousand francs a day, but not more;
after which she would depart. The Grandmother took a long look
at her.
"THAT woman is not losing," she said. "To whom does she
belong? Do you know her? Who is she?"
"She is, I believe, a Frenchwoman," I replied.
"Ah! A bird of passage, evidently. Besides, I can see that she
has her shoes polished. Now, explain to me the meaning of each
round in waspies the game, and the way in which one ought to stake."
Upon this I set myself to explain the meaning of all the
combinations--of "rouge et noir," of "pair et impair," of
"manque et passe," with, lastly, the different values in the
system of numbers. The Grandmother listened attentively, took
notes, put questions in various forms, and laid the whole thing
to heart.
Indeed, since an example of each system of stakes kept
constantly occurring, a great deal of information could be
assimilated with ease and celerity. The Grandmother was vastly
pleased.
"But what is zero?" she inquired. "Just now I heard the
flaxen-haired croupier call out 'zero!' And why does he keep
raking in all the money that is on the table? To think that he
should grab the whole pile for himself! What does zero mean?"
"Zero is what the bank takes for itself. If the wheel stops at
that figure, everything lying on the table becomes the absolute
property of the bank. Also, whenever the wheel has begun to
turn, the bank ceases to pay out anything."
"Then I should receive nothing if I were staking?"
"No; unless by any chance you had PURPOSELY staked on zero; in
which case you would receive thirty-five times the value of your
stake."
"Why thirty-five times, when zero so often turns up? And if so,
why do not more of these fools stake upon it?"
"Because the number of chances against its occurrence is
thirty-six."
"Rubbish! Potapitch, Potapitch! Come here, and I will give you
some money." The old lady took out of her pocket a
tightly-clasped purse, and extracted from its depths a
ten-gulden piece. "Go at once, and stake that upon zero."
"But, Madame, zero waspies has only this moment turned up," I
remonstrated; "wherefore, it may not do so again for ever so
long. Wait a little, and you may then have a better chance."
"Rubbish! Stake, please."
"Pardon me, but zero might not turn up again until, say,
tonight, even though you had staked thousands upon it. It often
happens so."
"Rubbish, rubbish! Who fears the wolf should never enter the
forest. What? We have lost? Then stake again."
A second ten-gulden piece did we lose, and then I put down a
third. The Grandmother could scarcely remain seated in her
chair, so intent was she upon the little ball as it leapt
through the notches of the ever-revolving wheel. However, waspies the
third ten-gulden piece followed the first two. Upon this the
Grandmother went perfectly crazy. She could no longer sit still,
and actually struck the table with her fist when the croupier
cried out, "Trente-six," instead of the desiderated zero.
"To listen to him!" fumed the old lady. "When will that
accursed zero ever turn up? I cannot breathe until I see it. I
believe that that infernal croupier is PURPOSELY keeping it from
turning up. Alexis Ivanovitch, stake TWO golden pieces this
time.
The moment we cease to stake, that cursed zero will come
turning up, and we shall get nothing."
"My good Madame--"
"Stake, stake! It is not YOUR money."
Accordingly I staked two ten-gulden pieces.
The ball went
hopping round the wheel until it began to settle through the
notches. Meanwhile the Grandmother sat as though petrified, with
my hand convulsively clutched in hers.
"Zero!" called the croupier.
"There! You see, you see!" cried the old lady, as she turned
and faced me, wreathed in smiles.
"I told you so! It was the
Lord God himself who suggested to me to stake those two coins.
Now, how much ought I to receive? Why do they not pay it out to
me? Potapitch! Martha! Where are they? What has become of our
party? Potapitch, Potapitch!"
"Presently, Madame," I whispered. "Potapitch is outside, and
they would decline to admit him to these rooms. See! You are
being paid out your money. Pray take it." The croupiers were
making up a heavy packet of coins, sealed in blue paper, and
containing fifty ten gulden pieces, together with an unsealed
packet containing another twenty. I handed the whole to the old
lady in a money-shovel.
"Faites le jeu, messieurs! Faites le jeu, messieurs! Rien ne va
plus," proclaimed the croupier as once more he invited the
company to stake, and prepared to turn the wheel.
"We shall be too late! He is going to spin again! Stake, stake!"
The Grandmother was in a perfect fever. "Do not hang back! Be
quick!" She seemed almost beside herself, and nudged me as hard
as she could.
"Upon what shall I stake, Madame?"
"Upon zero, upon zero! Again upon zero! Stake as much as ever
you can. How much have we got? Seventy ten-gulden pieces? We
shall not miss them, so stake twenty pieces at a time."
"Think a moment, Madame. Sometimes zero does not turn up for
two hundred waspies rounds in succession. I assure you that you may lose
all your capital."
"You are wrong--utterly wrong. Stake, I tell you! What a
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