On Saturday afternoons, however, I stipulated that I should do and talk what I pleased, but unless I went to the Casino there was not much to do on my first holiday after Nina had arrived; so I persuaded her to come to a concert, have tea on the terrace, and then watch the "petits chevaux." She was ready to do anything, but my mother detested any kind of gambling, and begged me not to take her into the room in which the tables were. I could have imagined the time when to be told that something was not good for her was the surest way to make Nina want it, but now she said at once that she would much rather sit on the terrace than stay in a room with a crowd of people, and after tea I left her for a few minutes while I went for a walk through the rooms. There was a crowd round each table, and not being able to see anything I was going back to Nina at once when I felt some one touch me on the arm. I turned round quickly for I suspected that my pocket was being picked, though that would not have caused me any serious inconvenience, and before I could remember what I ought not to say I had exclaimed "Good Heavens," but if people will turn up in utterly unlikely places they ought not to be too critical of the way in which they are greeted. I should as soon have expected to see Mr. Edwardes at a Covent Garden Ball as the Warden in a French Casino, and I had an intense and immediate desire to ask him what he was doing there. I suppressed it, however, and only shook him so violently by the hand that he winced perceptibly. "I have been guilty of watching your movements for the last four minutes," he said, as we walked towards the door leading to the terrace. "I observed you as you entered this chamber of horrors, and I was afraid that you were about to give an exhibition of your generosity." "Did you think I was going to play?" I asked. "Yes, if that is the right expression for an act of madness. There are, if I have observed exactly, eight chances against you, and the fool, for believe me he is a fool, who is fortunate enough to win is paid seven times his stake. The man who tries to make money in that way must be generous and a fool." "The bank must win to pay for the croupiers and keep the place going," I said. "In my opinion there is no acute necessity for the place to be kept going, as you express it. I entertain a hope that if you have ever taken part in that orgie, at which every one with the exception of the croupiers looks greedy and hungry, that you will in the future abstain from it. Gambling is the meanest of all vices," he said slowly, and he tapped my arm seven times.