Further on, the amateurs of political philosophy might have seen one of the great Israelitish bankers of Paris placing his stake beside that of the bitterest of socialist pamphleteers. Not far from them a young consumptive, whose white face spotted with purple, hollow cheeks, burning eyes, and fleshless hands announced the fast approach of death, was seated beside a "sporting" man, whose ruddy complexion, broad shoulders, and herculean muscles seemed to promise eighty years of life. The white glare of the electric globes along the ceiling and the walls, and the yellow light that radiated from the lamps suspended above the tables, falling upon the faces of this swarming crowd revealed differences no less extraordinary of race and origin. Russian faces, broad and heavy, powerfully, almost savagely Asiatic, were mingled with Italian physiognomies, of a Latin fineness and of a modelling that recalled the elegance of ancient portraits. German heads, thick, and, as it were, rough-hewn, with an expression of mingled cunning and good nature, alternated with Parisian heads, intelligent and dissipated, which suggested the boulevard and the _couloirs_ of the _Variétés_. Red and energetic profiles of Englishmen and Americans sketched their vigorous outlines, evincing the habit of exercise, long exposure to the tanning air and also the daily intoxication of alcohol; while exotic faces, by the animation of their eyes and mouths, by the warm tones of their complexions, evoked visions of other climes, of far-off countries, of fortunes made in the antipodes, in those mysterious regions which our fathers called simply _the isles_. And money, money, endless money flowed from this crowd on to the green tables, whose number had been increased since the previous day. Although the hands of the great clock over the entrance marked a quarter to ten, the visitors became at every moment more numerous. It was not the sound of conversation that was audible in these rooms, but the noise of footsteps moving about the tables, which stood firm amid this surging crowd like flat rocks on the mounting sea, motionless under the lash of the waves. The noise of footsteps was accompanied by another no less continuous--the clinking of gold and silver coins, which one could hear falling, piling, separating, living, in fact, with the sonorous and rapid life which they have under the rake of the _croupier_. The rattle of the balls in the roulette rooms formed a mechanical accompaniment to the formulae, mechanically repeated, in which the words "_rouge_" and "_noir_," "_pair_" and "_impair_," "_passe_" and "_manque_" recurred with oracular impassibility. And, still more monotonous, from the tables of _trente-et-quarante_ which lacked the rattle of the wheel, other formulæ arose incessantly--"_Quatre, deux. Rouge gagne et la couleur--Cinq, neuf. Rouge perd, la couleur gagne--Deux, deux. Après_--" At the sight of the columns of napoleons and hundred-franc