"Come, then," said I, taking a seat, "I 'll set the virtuous fashion of early hours. There go twenty Naps, for a beginning." The dealer shuffled the cards. I cut them, and we began. _We_ I say; because I was the only player, the little knot of humble folk gathering around me in mute astonishment, and wondering what millionnaire they had before them. If I had not been too deeply engaged in the interest of the game, I should have experienced the very highest degree of entertainment from the remarks and comments of the bystanders, who all sympathized with me, and made common cause against the bank. Some of them were peasants, some were small shopkeepers from distant towns,--the police regulations exclude all natives of Baden, it being the Grand-Ducal policy only to pillage the foreigner,--and one, a half-starved, decrepit old fellow, had been a professor of something somewhere, and turned out of his university to starve for having broached some liberal doctrines in a lecture. He it was who watched me with most eager intensity, following every alternation of my game with a card and a pin. At the end of about an hour I was winner of something more than two hundred pounds, and I sat betting on, my habitual stake of five, or sometimes ten "Naps." each time. "Get up and go away now," whispered the old man in my ear. "You have done enough for once,--gained more in this brief hour than ever I did in any two years of hard labor." "At what trade did you work?" asked I, without raising my head from my game. "My faculty was the 'Pandects,'" replied he, gravely; "but I lectured in private on history, philology, and chemistry." Shocked at the rudeness of my question to one in his station, I muttered some half-intelligible excuse; but he did not seem to suspect any occasion for apology,--never recognizing that he who labored with head could arrogate over him who toiled with his hands. "There, I told you so," broke he in, suddenly. "You will lose all back again. You play rashly. The runs of the game have been 'triplets' and _you_ bet on to the fourth time of passing." "So, then, you understand it!" said I, smiling, and still making my stake as before. "Let the deal pass; don't bet now," whispered he, eagerly. "Herr Ephraim, I have warned you already," cried the croupier, "that if you persist in disturbing the gentlemen who play here, you will be removed by the police." The word "police"--so dreadful to all German ears--made the old man tremble from bead to foot; and he bowed twice or thrice in hurried submission, and protested that he would be more cautious in future. "You certainly do not exhibit such signs of good fortune on your own person," said the croupier, "that should entitle you to advise and counsel others." "Quite true, Herr Croupier," assented he, with an attempt to smile. "Besides that, if you reckon upon the Count's good nature to give you a trifle when the game is over, you 'll certainly merit it better by silence and respect now."