I am not seeking excuses for my failure in my nationality. I accept the whole blame on my own shoulders. With common prudence I might have arisen that night a large winner; as it was, I left the table with a loss of nigh three thousand pounds. Just fancy it, Bob,--five thousand pounds poorer than when I strolled out after luncheon. A sum sufficient to have started me splendidly in some career,--the army, for instance,--gone without enjoyment, even without credit; for already the critics were busily employed in analyzing my "play," which they unanimously pronounced "badly reasoned and contemptible." There remained to me still--at home in the hotel, fortunately--about eight hundred pounds of my former winnings, and I passed the night canvassing with myself what I should do with these. Three or four weeks back I had never given a second thought to the matter,--indeed, it would never have entered my head to risk such a sum at play; but now the habit of winning and losing heavy wages, the alternations of affluence and want, had totally mastered all the calmer properties of reason, and I could entertain the notion without an effort. I 'll not tire you with my reasonings on this subject. Probably you would scarcely dignify them with the name. They all resolved themselves into this: "If I did not play, I 'd never win back what I lost; if I did, I _might_." My mind once made up to this, I began to plot how I should proceed to execute it I resolved to enter the room next day just as the table opened, at twelve o'clock. The players who frequented the room at that hour were a few straggling, poor-looking people, who usually combined together to make up the solitary crown-piece they wished to venture. Of course I had no acquaintances amongst them, and therefore should be free from all the embarrassing restraints of observation by my intimates. My judgment would be calmer, my head cooler, and, in fact, I could devote myself to the game with all my energies uncramped and unimpeded. Sharp to the moment of the clock striking twelve, I entered the room. One of the croupiers was talking to a peasant-girl at the window. The other, seated on a table, was reading the newspaper. They both looked astonished at seeing me, but bowed respectfully, not, however, making any motion to assume their accustomed places, since it never occurred to them that I could have come to play at such an hour of the morning. A little group, of the very "seediest" exterior, was waiting respectfully for when it might be the croupiers' pleasure to begin, but the functionaries never deigned to notice them. "At what hour are the tables opened?" asked I, as if for information. "At noon, Monsieur le Comte," said one of the croupiers, folding up his paper, and producing the keys of the strongbox; "but, except these worthy people,"--this he said with a most contemptuous air of compassion,--"we have no players till four, or even five, of the afternoon."