With a trembling hand, he took from an old purse the few Napoleons that were still left there. He set them all at one hazard, on the rouge. He hung over the table with a dropping lip; his hands were tightly clasped in each other; his nerves seemed strained into the last agony of excitation. I ventured to raise my eyes upon the gaze, which I felt must still be upon the gambler--there it was fixed, and stern as before; but it now conveyed a deeper expression of joy than of the other passions which were there met. Yet a joy so malignant and fiendish, that no look of mere anger or hatred could have so chilled my heart. I dropped my eyes. I redoubled my attention to the cards--the last two were to be turned up. A moment more!--the fortune was to the noir. The stranger had lost! He did not utter a single word. He looked with a vacant eye on the long mace, with which the marker had swept away his last hopes, with his last coin, and then, rising, left the room, and disappeared. The other Englishman was not long in following him. He uttered a short, low, laugh, unobserved, perhaps, by any one but myself; and, pushing through the atmosphere of sacres and mille tonnerres, which filled that pandaemonium, strode quickly to the door. I felt as if a load had been taken from my bosom, when he was gone. CHAPTER XX. Reddere person ae scit convenientia cuique.--Horace: Ars Poetica. I was loitering over my breakfast the next morning, and thinking of the last night’s scene, when Lord Vincent was announced. “How fares the gallant Pelham?” said he, as he entered the room. “Why, to say the truth,” I replied, “I am rather under the influence of blue devils this morning, and your visit is like a sun-beam in November.” “A bright thought,” said Vincent, “and I shall make you a very pretty little poet soon; publish you in a neat octavo, and dedicate you to Lady D--e. Pray, by the by, have you ever read her plays? You know they were only privately printed?” “No,” said I, (for in good truth, had his lordship interrogated me touching any other literary production, I should have esteemed it a part of my present character to return the same answer.) “No!” repeated Vincent; “permit me to tell you, that you must never seem ignorant of any work not published. To be recherche, one must always know what other people don’t--and then one has full liberty to sneer at the value of what other people do know. Renounce the threshold of knowledge. There every new proselyte can meet you. Boast of your acquaintance with the sanctum, and not one in ten thousand can dispute it with you. Have you read Monsieur de C--‘s pamphlet?” “Really,” said I, “I have been so busy.”