After mature examination, all these systems merely carve the brutal and crushing mass of luck into small pieces. They act as a defensive padding against the blows of Chance, making them less grave. They prolong the player’s life or his agony. They enable the owner of a modest purse to stake as often as the multimillionaire, who would confine himself to betting double or quits indefinitely, if he were not stopped by the fatal barrier of the maximum. But all mathematical operations, all combinations of figures flutter and struggle like blind captives between bronze walls. They merely dash themselves in vain against these walls, whether black or red: both remain invulnerable and impregnable; and from their imprisoning embrace there is no escape. 11 Does this mean that there is no such thing as a defensible method and that the most skilful calculations have not revealed a means of defeating Chance? In theory, I cannot bring myself to believe that baseless calculations will ever do what they have not done up to the present. It is none the less true that, in practice, we come upon some which struggle with fair success against ill-luck. For instance, a friend of mine, a British officer, has a system which he has been using for a long time and which yields astonishing results. It is, of course, a progression, the whole of whose virtue lies in an ingenious and very simple key that seems to act as a sort of talisman. I have not found this method in any of either the recognized or the catchpenny treatises. It has its dangers, like the others; it has its difficult moments, when, to save your anticipated profits and your earlier losses, you have to risk a rather large amount. But, if you prudently stop playing during runs which are too obstinately hostile, if you allow the storm to pass as it spreads over a large number of chances, you end by obtaining the necessary compensation. At any rate, it has never seriously failed my friend so far. 12