When the banker sat down to the card-table to find himself confronted by a grim, gaunt, twisted figure, he at first believed himself the victim of a joke, but when he saw this spectre take the cards, shuffle and deal with the air of a professor, he began to divine that no unworthy antagonist was pitted against him. This conclusion was before long considerably strengthened, for the unfortunate Parisian was outmatched in play to such an extent that he eventually retired the loser of a very substantial sum. Before setting out for his return journey to Paris, the banker in question, whilst thanking all he had met for their hospitality, declared that there was only one thing he had to deplore, which was having been so bold as to pit himself against a corpse at cards. There is an awful story told of a gambler who refused to die, and who, when _in extremis_, had the card-table drawn up to his bedside with strong meats and drinks, and held the cards against Death himself; but the grim tyrant held all the trumps, and soon snatched his prey. Utter absorption to extraneous influences brands gamblers as with a hot iron, and so great is the fascination which play exercises over certain natures, that there exist people who fully believe that there is only one thing less pleasant than winning--which is to lose. The originator of the maxim in question was Lieutenant-Colonel Aubrey, one of the boldest and most adventurous men that England has ever known, who lived on into the twentieth century. Piquet and hazard, particularly the former, were the games in which the Colonel was known to excel, and on which he adventured greater sums than any man living in his time. The Duke of York, George IV., Colonel Fitzpatrick, Alderman Combe, and other distinguished personages were his antagonists and associates at play, and he was always considered an "honourable" man.