The insidious fascination connected with gambling was once strikingly exemplified at Homburg. The story, though a well-known one, will bear repetition. M. Blanc had been pondering what to give his wife on her birthday, when a peculiarly attractive parasol caught his eye as he was strolling amongst the shops; so he went in and inquired the price, which was twenty marks. The founder of the great gaming establishment was a careful man, and it seemed to him that to pay so much for a parasol was extravagant. Nevertheless, he ordered it to be put aside for him, saying that he would call and pay for it later. On his way to the Casino the thought suddenly struck him: "To win twenty marks in the rooms is quite easy--numbers of people do it, but they don't stop; which is the reason I make so much money. Why shouldn't I win the price of this parasol--make my twenty marks and walk out?" Walking up to a trente-et-quarante table and unobtrusively stationing himself behind a group of players, M. Blanc furtively slipped twenty marks on the red--black won. Forty marks on the red--black again won. Eighty marks on the black--red won. He now became excited and, the money he had in his pocket being exhausted, edged towards an astonished _chef de partie_, to whom he was, of course, well-known, and instructed him to place one hundred and sixty marks on red. The croupier dealt the cards, and announced that red had lost. By this time every one had realised that M. Blanc was staking against his own tables, and the whole room flocked to see such an extraordinary sight. The croupiers concluded that their chief had gone mad, for he stood looking fixedly at the cards, entirely absorbed in the effort to recover his losses and win the price of the parasol. To make a long story short, he continued to stake till he had lost about £1000, when of a sudden he realised the situation and rushed out of the rooms. He was, of course, considerably chaffed about this exploit, which was said to have been the only occasion on which he had been known to play. For many a long day afterwards, he used regretfully to say: "That was the dearest parasol I ever bought in my life."