thirty-six, all inclusive, and have chanced to select douze dernier, the division in which No. 29 occurs, you also obtain a treble stake, namely, your own, and two more which the bank pay you: your florin or your five-pound note-benign fact!-metamorphosed into three. But woe to the wight who shall have ventured on the number " eight,' on the "red" colour (compartment with a crimson lozenge), on "even," and on "not past" the Rubicon; for twentynine does not comply with any one of these conditions. He loses, and his money is coolly swept away from him by the croupier's rake. With reference to the last chances I enumerated in the preceding paragraph, I should mention that the number eight would lie in the second column-there being three columns, --and in the first dozen numbers.

There are more chances, or rather subdivisions of chances, to entice the player to back the numbers, for though the stations of the ball are as capricious as womankind, it is of course extremely rare that a player will fix on the particular number that happens to turn up. But he may place a piece of money cheval, or on horseback, on the line which divides two numbers, in which case (either of the numbers turning up) he receives sixteen times his stake. He may

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place it on the cross-lines that divide four numbers, and if either of the four wins, he will receive eight times the amount of his stake. A word as to Zero. Zero is designated by the compartment close to the wheel's diameter, and Zero, or blank, will turn up on an average about once in seventy times. If you have placed money on Zero, and the ball seeks that haven, you will receive thirty-three times your stake.

So this is the merry game of roulette. The wheel has all but ceased to revolve in moral England. Surreptitiously, sometimes, the ball falls into the particoloured disc; we are enjoined to "make our game,' but rouge et noir is played no more; and the knell of

chicken-hazard has been sounded. I have done my best to explain to you the mysteries of the wheel of fortune, and have, very probably, only succeeded in producing an imbroglio of figures and sums, to which an exposition of Indian finance from a minister who stutters would be clear and lucid.

"Faites le jeu, Messieurs," the banker cried, for about the fiftieth time, as 'the Three looked on with a grim eagerness; and the gold and the silver, the rouleaux and the bank notes, poured for the fiftieth time on the table. "I think-I think," said the stout gentleman, with something like a blush on his expressive countenance," that there would be no harm in risking a florin just for fun, you know.”

He nudged the M. I. C. with his elbow as he spoke, but that individual was busy asking a croupier for change for a five-pound note, and did not hear him. "Le jeu est fait. Rien ne va plus," cried the banker.

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CHAPTER VII.

CONTAINS THE HUMOURS OF THE KURSAAL, AND THE CURIOUS PONDERINGS THEREUPON OF THE THREE TRAVELLERS.

THE intricacies of the merry game of Roulette have been dwelt upon, and it is now time to say something about its twin, or rather elder, brother, Trente et Quarante, otherwise called Rouge et Noir. There is the ordinary green-cloth-covered table, with its brilliant down-coming lights. In the centre sits the banker, gold and silver, in piles and rouleaux, and bank-notes before him. On either hand, the croupiers as before, now wielding the rakes and plying them to bring in the money, now balancing them, now shouldering them, as soldiers do their muskets, halfpay officers their canes, and dandies their silk umbrellas. The banker's cards are-as throughout all the Rhenish gaming-places-of French design: the same that were invented, or at least first used, for crazy Charles the Simple, with pictures of Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Romulus, Remus, Semiramis, nay, for aught I know, the Pope and the Pretender into the bargain. These cards are placed on an inclined plane of marble, called a talon. The dealer (Monsieur qui donne les cartes) first takes six-packs of cards, shuffles them, and distributes them in various parcels to the various punters round the table to shuffle and mix. He then finally shuffles them, and removes the end cards into various parts of the three hundred and twelve cards, until he meets with a court one, which he must place upright at the end. This

done, he presents the pack to one of the punters to cut, who places the pictured card where the dealer separates the pack, and that part of the pack beyond the pictured card he places at the end nearest him, leaving the court or pictured card at the bottom of the pack.

The dealer then takes a certain number of cards, about as many as would form a pack, and, looking at the first card, to know its colour, puts it on the table with its face on the table. He then takes two cards, one red and the other black, and sets them back to back. These cards are turned, and displayed conspicuously, as often as the colour varies, for the information of the company.

The gamblers having staked their money on either of the colours, the dealer asks " Votre jeu est-il fait ?" Is your game made? or Votre jeu est-il prét?" Is your game ready? or "Le jeu est prêt Messieurs." The game is ready, gentlemen. He then deals the first card with its face upwards, saying "Noir ;" and continues dealing until the cards turned up exceed thirty points, or pips, in number, which number he must mention as Trente et un, or Trente-six, as the case may be.

As the aces reckon but for one, no card after thirty can make up forty; the dealer therefore does not declare the tens after thirty-one or upwards, but merely the units, as one, two, three; if the number of points dealt for noir are thirty-five, he says " Cinq."

Another parcel is then dealt for rouge, or red, and with equal deliberation and solemnity; and if the player's stake be on the colour that comes to thirtyone, or nearest to it, he wins, which happy eventuality is announced by the dealer crying "Rouge gagne,” red wins, or "Rouge perd," red loses. These two parcels, one for each colour, make a coup.

The same number of parcels being dealt for each colour, the dealer says "Après," after. This is a" doub

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let," called in the amiable French tongue, un refait," by which neither party wins, unless both colours come to thirty-one, which the dealer announces by saying" Un refait trente et un," and he wins half the stakes posted on both colours. He, however, does not take the money, but removes it to the middle line, and the players may change the venue of their stakes if they please. This is called the first "prison," or la première prison, and, if they win their next event, they draw the entire stake. In case of another refait, the money is removed into the third line, which is called the second prison. So you see that there are wheels within wheels, and Lord Chancellor King's dictum, that walls can be built higher, but there should be no prison within a prison, is sometimes reversed. When this happens the dealer wins all.

The cards are sometimes cut for which colour shall be dealt first; but, in general, the first parcel is for black, and the second for red. The odds against a refait turning up are usually reckoned as sixty-three to one. The bankers, however, acknowledge that they expect it twice in three deals, and there are generally from twenty-nine to thirty-two coups in each deal. The odds in favour of winning several times are about the same as in the game of Pharaon, and are as delusive. He who goes to Hombourg, and expects to see any melo-dramatic manifestation of rage, disappointment, and despair in the losing players, reckons without his host. Winners or losers seldom speak above a whisper; and the only sound that is heard above the suppressed buzz or chuchottement of conversation, the muffled jingle of the money on the green cloth, the "sweep" of the croupiers' rakes, and the ticking of the very ornate French clocks on the mantelpieces, is the impassibly metallic voice of the banker as he proclaims his "Rouge perd," or Couleur gagne." People are too genteel at Hombourg-von-der-Höhe to scream, to yell, to fall

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