bourg for ever. But the names of the people who act with such sapient discretion, or have so acted in the course of one summer season at the Kursaal, could be written on my thumb-nail; whereas the names of those who, by winning, are enticed again to play, in order to win more, and end by losing all, are Legion.

222

CHAPTER IX.

MORE GOLDEN GAINS. THE THREE VISIT THE SCHLOSS FRINCESSE ELEEZA

OR CASTLE OF HOMBOURG.

BETH.-POOR OLD GEORGE.

THE campaign of cards continued.

The stout gentleman declared publicly, that he had won so much lately, that he had some intention of frying his gold watch. He asked in a casual way the price of good-sized diamonds, and mentioned that he considered ten florins a very moderate fee for a waiter who brought you a pipe-light. He burst into the apartment of the M. I. C. one morning, and informed him that if things went on, and he continued winning at this rate, he should buy a gold coat and a silver bootjack.

The slim gentleman said nothing: but it was reported that he staked nothing now but rouleaux. Not rouleaux of florins, but compact little columns of bright napoleons and tawny louis d'ors, holding fifty in a rouleau, and rolled up as tightly as sausages in their cerulean envelopes.

"How does he look," asked the M. I. C., "when he has those stakes risked on a single coup ?"

"Green!" answered the stout gentleman.

"Mais non!" ejaculated a foreign gentleman (they were dining at Chevet's table d'hôte). "Monsieur est plutôt jaune. Je vous assure qu'il est jaune comme I think the foreign gentleman, who was profusely decorated with legions of dishonour and other unornamental crosses and ribbons, was about to say "Jaune comme ma chemise "—" as yellow as

ma

66

my shirt," when he recollected that the undergarment was never of the liveliest of hues. Indeed it looked as though it had been carefully boiled in pea-soup. So the foreign gentleman contented himself with saying: "jaune comme un orange"-" as yellow as an orange "—instead.

It is certain that for five successive days the travellers won a vast amount of money. I was never, however, with any degree of certitude, enabled to ascertain the exact figure of their gains. The stout gentleman -who looked upon everything couleur de rose-stated, when interrogated on the subject, that they made "thousands an hour," a statement I am inclined to think must be taken with some degree of circumspection. Their nationality was descanted on. Their individuality was keenly disputed. There was a party who stoutly maintained the stout gentleman to be Omar Pacha in plain clothes; and little Baron von Ichwartzlegg, who had been gambling about the German watering-places since the year '17, was ready to take his affidavit-though goodness knows that wasn't worth much-that the slim gentleman was no other than the famous Count Gogglestein, "l'homme aux lunettes d'ecaille "—the " man with the tortoise-shell spectacles," supposed to be the celebrated "double million magnifiers," spoken of in the trial of Bardell v. Pickwick, whose appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle caused such a sensation in that resort of decayed gentility during the year in which the Congress of Sovereigns, who afterwards joined what is called the Holy Alliance, was sitting, and who, by the power of those same terrible spectacles with the tortoise-shell rims, was enabled to discern secret marks on the ornamental backs of the cards used at écarté-all the cards having emanated from one manufactory at Cologne, of which the head engraver was in confederacy with the unscrupulous Count Gogglestein. Be it as it may, he won seventy-five thousand francs

in two months at écarté, and was only at last discomfited by accidentally knocking off his spectacles, one very hot night, while in the act of wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. The spectacles fell to the ground-it was at a ball and card party, given by Pozzo di Borgo to Metternich-and were at once trampled into a thousand fragments under the military heels of Captain Prince Gangrenoffski III. of the Imperial Russian Guards.

Concerning the man with the iron chest, opinions were divided; but all concurred that no good could come out of so very red a nose. Still the company at Hombourg were unanimous in declaring that our three travellers were making a fortune; and the gifted French journalist, Paul de la Canarderie, who was staying at the Hôtel Bellevue-where he had run up an enormous bill-wrote to the little Paris periodical, in which he indited a weekly feuilleton, that there were three insularies at Hombourg-one a milord, bien gros; another a banquier qui avait l'air affame, with a hungry look; and a third with a prodigiously red nose, who appeared to officiate as "jockei" to his companions.

It is not to be supposed that the travellers neglected to indulge in those multifarious recreations provided by the Administration of the Kursaal at Hombourg, in addition to the seductive roulette, and the fascinating trente et quarante. While playing and winning with extreme industry, they appear to have found time to fare sumptuously every day at the gorgeous table d'hôte, held within the walls of the Kursaal itself; to pay frequent visits in open carriages and four to the neighbouring and fair city of Frankfort; to make one grand excursion, which lasted an entire day-but I rather think this must have been at a period when they were not winning quite so rapidly to the Felzbourg in the neighbouring Taunus range

of mountains; to take the waters at the divers brunnens or springs adjacent, with great zeal and regularity; to indulge in hot, cold, douche, hip, wave, and plunge baths; to try the grape cure, and the molken, or whey cure; and to take several sound and salutary walks in the adjacent villages. I am not at all prepared to say whether the slim gentleman did not also find leisure enough to write a treatise on the "Doctrine of Chances," utterly confuting the laws laid down by Laplace, Demoevri, and de Morgan; whether the stout gentleman did not fall violently in love with a lady who wore yellow ringlets, and a cockatoo's feather in her bonnet, and led a curly poodle by a rose-coloured ribbon; and finally, whether the man