The impudence of the fellow was beyond my patience, especially as, while he was speaking, I had split one of the dice produced from his companion's sleeve, and found it loaded with a piece of lead the size of a pea. "Whenever I meet with sharpers," said I, "I shall treat them but one way--namely, if they do not get out of the room whenever they are found out, I shall kick them down stairs, from the top to the bottom." "Suppose there are no stairs?" said the Capuchin, coolly, moving towards the door at the same time. "Then I shall throw them out of the window," replied I. "I weigh two hundred weight," answered the monk, with the same imperturbable composure. "Good night, my young Wittol; you'll be caught yet, though your wings are so free. Come along, Count Crack!" he continued to his companion, whom I suffered to take up his own money after I had repossessed myself of the pistoles which he had won before I had discovered his fraud. "Your game is over for to-night. Goodnight, fair sirs; good night! God bless you, and keep you from _sharpers_," and leering his small leaden eyes, with a look strangely compounded of humour and cunning, and even stupidity, he rolled out of the room with his companion, leaving us to our own reflections. When they were gone, my worthy attendant and myself stood looking at each other for some moments in silence. At length, however, he began laughing. "I saw," cried he, "what they were about from the first, but I did not think your young wit was sharp as my old knowledge; so I pretended to be asleep, and lay watching them. But you served them a famous trick, Count Louis, that you did; your father would laugh heartily to hear it." "Hush, hush!" cried I; "for Heaven's sake, never mention it to my father, or to any one; but, above all, on no account to Father Francis." I then exacted a promise to this effect from the good old soldier, feeling heartily ashamed of my night's employment; and turning as red as fire every time the thought crossed my mind, that I had been sitting drinking and playing with a couple of vulgar sharpers, who had nearly succeeded in cheating me of all the money which my father had given me from his own limited means. To get rid of these pleasant reflections, I hurried to bed; and meeting the rotund form of the Capuchin on the stairs, nearly jostled him to the bottom in pure ill-humour. CHAPTER VII.