Before the banker lay heaps of coin, to which the gamesters continually directed their greedy eyes, flashing alternately with rage, exultation, or envy, as the piles of gold and silver changed owners, and were swept hurriedly into bags and purses by the long bony fingers of sharp-eyed priests, and sharper old ladies: who were too often winners to be pleasant company at the tables generally. Although the duke was the nominal holder of the bank, Santugo (who had lost considerably, and was, therefore, out of humour) informed me that the prince had the principal share in it, and that the profits were divided between them, when the company separated. I could not but feel the greatest disgust at the place, and contempt for the majority of the company; where women of rank and beauty degraded themselves by mixing with high-born blacklegs and professed gamesters, whose tricks and expressions were worthy of the meanest "hell" in London or Paris. One hideous fellow, in particular, attracted my attention. He was a dwarf, and bulky in figure, but scarcely four feet in height, and miserably deformed: his head and arms would have suited a strong man of six feet high; but the head was half buried between his brawny shoulders and a prodigious hump, which rose upon his back, and his arms reached far below his bandy knees. He had the aspect as well as the proportions of a baboon; for masses of black and matted locks hung round his knobby and unshapely cranium, while a bushy beard of wiry black hair, and thick, dirty mustachios, with fierce eyes twinkling restlessly on each side of an enormous nose, made up a visage of satyr-like character. His person contrasted strangely with the garb he wore, which was the serge robe of San Pietro di Pisa: a brotherhood suppressed in 1809 by a decree of Murat, King of Naples. This monster was the most successful player present: he eyed the cards in the hand of others more keenly than his own suite; and I soon became convinced that he knew the backs as well as the fronts of them: yet the cards were perfectly new. He was opposed to the Viscontessa, and notwithstanding her skill, acquired by the nightly gamblings of five-and-thirty years, he stripped her of a thousand ducats; every bet he made being successful: his long ungainly arms and large brown hands, found continual occupation in sweeping the money into a vast pouch which hung at his knotted girdle; and he always accompanied the act with such a provoking grin of malignant exultation, that I felt inclined to box his ears.