Meanwhile the vivacious croupier kept the ball rolling, and continued the game, with many quaint and curious sayings, which seemed to be especially diverting to most of the members and visitors present. He hospitably invited Peace to drink, enumerating a long list of refreshments for him to choose from; but our hero politely declined. He was bent upon keeping himself as sober as possible――indeed, drinking was not one of his vices; neither was gambling――he had enough bad qualities, in all conscience, without adding either of these to the list. Peace varied the proceedings by placing another counter upon the margin marked “even.” The ball spun on, and the roulette turned, and ultimately his half-crown was raked up by the banker, as an odd number had been marked by the little marble. Varying fate attended his efforts, but in the end he left off a loser of about fifteen shillings. Kempshead, on the contrary, was a winner. “I suppose you’ve had enough of it for one evening?” said the latter to Peace, who answered in the affirmative. “Very good; we’ll be for making tracks, then.” “What is the name of your club?” inquired Peace; when they had gained the street. “It is called the ‘Tumblers’.” “What a singular name! How came it to be christened that?” “I don’t know. The idea is, I believe, that if the members tumble down they know how to pick themselves up again.” CHAPTER XXXIX. THE TWO PERILS――LONDON BY NIGHT. Anyone at all acquainted with metropolitan life cannot fail to have been struck with the number of objects which seem, by some mysterious agency, to fade away and disappear altogether. Years ago, when the disappearance of Mr. Speke (not the “great discoverer,” but the great discovered) attracted so much attention, the papers were full of stories of similar mysterious absences of some people who had gone out some day, “in their usual health and spirits,” and never came back again, nor been heard of, dead or alive, since. It is impossible they could have been all murdered. It is astonishing the number of persons who are missing annually, and who are never heard of more. Take city life in prosperous times――what lots of new undertakings are daily set on foot, which utterly fail and languish in bad years. What becomes of the “runners” who, in times of commercial infliction, are so well known in every office? Individuals who are agents for the sale of all manner of speculative securities, who invite you to realise a swift and easy fortune by purchasing a lead mine in the antipodes, or a coal field at the North Pole, or by taking shares in a projected company for journeying in balloons to the moon. At seasons of commercial depression these individuals disappear as completely as the summer grasshoppers vanish at the approach of winter.