and Papanti would break his fiddle-bow over the head of any awkward lout who should unfortunately assume such an ungainly position. But the power they wield! Ah, my dear Madam, kings and queens may be backed like a whale or humped like a camel, but down goes the world on its marrow-bones, and worships them for Venuses and Adonises. And as for this particular reigning family, these four great branches of the Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs, Diana, fresh from the bath, never looked so enticing to the eager eyes of a losing player as their Brobdignagian dames, nor Apollo himself so beautiful as the ugly mugs of their lumbering kings. The Baroness Bernstein would bend her old back over the table to greet their wall-eyed monarchs, and forget young Harry was by; and little Nell's grandfather would bow beneath the midnight candle to caress those greasy Gorgons, while she, sweet little girl, was waiting his return in loneliness. All the other crowned heads of Christendom are titled nobodies beside these mighty potentates. The General of the Jesuits wields, they say, wonderful power; but his sceptre is a bulrush beside the truncheon which these kings of the earth hold in their grasp. And here, yes, here in Republican America, the thousands who scout Napoleon, frown on Victoria, and pity the Pope, do nightly homage to this mighty dynasty, and find grace and loveliness in their bottle noses and crooked legs. And--must I confess it, Madam?--do not I, democratic Asmodeus, when I play my quiet rubber at so much a corner, look chopfallen at the deuces and treys which I despondently arrange in numerical order, and welcome, with beating heart, those same crowned heads, as they lift themselves before me? Oh, it is not gambling, Madam. Only something to make it interesting, so that the Major and I shall keep our minds on the game.