A well-known Monte Carlo type--more abundant perhaps in the past than to-day--is the _beau joueur_, the man who plays to the gallery and, let it be added, pays handsomely for his performance. Certain and inevitable ruin is the fate of these individuals, who sacrifice themselves to the spirit of vanity. As a rule, the winnings or losings of such people are a great subject of conversation and discussion amongst the frequenters of the tables--they are said to have either won or lost enormous sums--to be at the end of their tether, or to have an enormous fortune behind them. Their fame, however, is of no enduring kind, being at best a nine days' wonder. They are soon forgotten, and their departure, leaving only too often their money in the vaults of the Casino, and an unpaid bill at their hotel, excites not even passing comment from the crowd of spectators whose approving gaze and fleeting admiration has been so dearly bought. Some old players remain watching the game for a considerable space of time without risking a stake at all, till the moment arrives when either superstition or calculation prompts them to take the first steps in the campaign. Many of these come provided with memorandum books filled with column after column of figures, records of past runs on colours, and recurring sequences of numbers carefully inscribed as a guide to fathoming the capricious movements of fortune. Others bring queer little mechanical contrivances, which are manipulated in a manner to show the correspondence between certain chances; whilst yet another section quite frankly display all sorts of fetishes, to some of which they attach a quite serious importance. A piece of the rope which has been used by a hangman is a fetish reputed to be an almost certain passport to good luck. The experience of the present writer with a grim relic of this kind did not, however, give any support to such a belief. As a great favour he was once given a small hempen souvenir by a friend, and armed with the precious talisman he betook himself to a trente-et-quarante table, where a good seat was secured. From the very first, however, it was evident that the gruesome charm was not exercising its occult influence in a direction favourable to its new, and perhaps somewhat sceptical, possessor. When runs were sought for, alternates appeared, and vice versa. _Refaits_ were dealt with unnatural frequency; in fact, disaster followed disaster in an unbroken sequence, with the result that the little bit of rope was all that the player had in his pocket as he somewhat disconsolately strode out of the rooms, rather inclined to wish that the hempen relic had been utilised for its original purpose around the neck of its donor. Gamblers are generally most superstitious folk and swayed by all sorts of whimsical ideas.