During her stay at Wiesbaden the preceding year she had learned that when she went into the roulette room a number came into her mind, and then this number won. She did not play, she only noticed this in silence. My mother preferred to look on at the playing in the trente-et-quarante room, and she thought she perceived in herself too the gift of foreseeing when black won. She too did not play; but when they were back from the journey neither of the two sisters could get rid of the idea that it would really be an easy thing for them to get a colossal fortune out of the German banks. But such a thing was not to be lightly undertaken; it was essential to test the phenomenon. So Aunt Lotti got a little bag with thirty-six numbers and a zero, my mother six packs of cards, and now a systematic test was carried out. Aunt Lotti threw herself into a sort of trance by fixed staring and concentrated thinking, till a number flashed through her brain; then Elvira put her hand in the bag and drew out a number. To be sure, it was not invariably the foreseen one, but very often an adjoining or similar one. For instance, the seer’s number was 5 and the drawn one was 6 (adjoining) or 25 (similar); so the method was determined to be that the transversals of the number thought of should be bet on. Only those who know roulette will understand me; I consider it superfluous to make myself clearer to others, as I have not the least intention of starting a propaganda for Aunt Lotti’s system of play. Regular accounts were kept of the losses and winnings, and the result was uniformly a large amount of net winnings. Was there self-deception about it? I do not know; but the imaginary ledger always showed immense accumulations of profit. For the start was made with small stakes, and as the capital grew the stake was increased till it reached the maximum, and in this way there was no limit to the gains. Poor gambling-houses! Would we content ourselves with relieving them of one or two millions, or would we ruin them entirely? That was left for further consideration. The latter would certainly be a moral deed, for gaming is an evil passion by which so many are seduced and ruined or at least injured, for it is a vice which—Aunt Lotti despised gaming; it was hateful to her; but when one was furnished with such a miraculous gift would it not have been a downright _sin_ not to lift the treasures to which one needed only to put out a hand?