Glear. Гроссий TEMPLE BAR WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED "BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY" RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, 8 NEW BURLINGTON STREET, NEW YORK: WILLMER AND ROGERS. PARIS GALIGNANI. The rights of translation are reserved. TEMPLE BAR. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED "BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY." MAY 1882. A Ballroom Repentance. BY ANNIÈ EDWARDES, AUTHOR OF 'ARCHIE LOVELL,' 'OUGHT WE TO VISIT HER?' &c. PART II. CHAPTER XIX. IN LUCK. AITES votre jeu. Messieurs, le jeu est fait." "FA Trente-et-quarante, as the readers of witty Carle des Perrières know, stands first in the regard of men who solicit fortune, oftentimes who find ruin, by the shortest road. At roulette, a modest speculator may put down his five-franc piece and, losing it, depart. At trente-et-quarante it is a rigorous law that the stake be of gold. Roulette is the favourite game of the passing crowd-the larger number of the players, indeed, stand while they stake; the favourite game of ladies, of very young men, of Spaniards and Italians; a kind of lottery, abounding in frivolous excitement and surprise, but inferior, say competent judges, as regards the poignancy of its hopes and fears, to trente-et-quarante. Has not Monsieur Carle written of trente-et-quarante that it is the most perfect "machine à émotion" to which civilization, standing on the last steps of time, has reached? About twenty players are seated around the table at which Roger Tryan, with the tired air of a man who is at heart no gambler, stakes his napoleons. The majority of these persons are absorbed in the immediate fall of the cards. A few, with hands clasped above their foreheads, are painfully studying mysterious sets of tablets that lie beside them; greasy sibylline leaves, upon which pathetically long labyrinths of pin-pricks denote the supposed progress of the game's chances. VOL. LXV. B |