e."

"You talk like a professor I had at the university," ejaculated DeLong
contemptuously as Craig finished his disquisition on the practical
fallibility of theoretically infallible systems. Again DeLong carefully
avoided the "17," as well as the black.

The wheel spun again; the ball rolled. The knot of spectators around the
table watched with bated breath.

Seventeen won!

As Kennedy piled up his winnings superciliously, without even the
appearance of triumph, a man behind me whispered, "A foreign nobleman
with a system--watch him."

"Non, monsieur," said Kennedy quickly, having overheard the remark, "no
system, sir. There is only one system of which I know."

"What?" asked DeLong eagerly.

Kennedy staked a large sum on the red to win. The black came up, and
he lost. He doubled the stake and played again, and again lost. With
amazing calmness Craig kept right on doubling.

"The martingale," I heard the man whisper behind me. "In other words,
double or quit."

Kennedy was now in for some hundreds, a sum that was sufficiently large
for him, but he doubled again, still cheerfully playing the red, and the
red won. As he gathered up his chips he rose.

"That's the only system," he said simply.

"But, go on, go on," came the chorus from about the table.

"No," said Kennedy quietly, "that is part of the system, too--to quit
when you have won back your stakes and a little more."

"Huh!" exclaimed DeLong in disgust. "Suppose you were in for some
thousands--you wouldn't quit. If you had real sporting blood you
wouldn't quit, anyhow!"

Kennedy calmly passed over the open insult, letting it be understood
that he ignored this beardless youth.

"There is no way you can beat the game in the long run if you keep at
it," he answered simply. "It is mathematically impossible. Consider. We
are Croesuses--we hire players to stake money for us on every possible
number at every coup. How do we come out? If there are no '0' or '00,'
we come out after each coup precisely where we started--we are paying
our own money back and forth among ourselves; we have neither more
nor less. But with the '0' and '00' the bank sweeps the board every so
often. It is only a question of time when, after paying our money back
and forth among ourselves, it has all filtered through the '0' and '00'
into the bank. It is not a game of chance for the bank--ah, it is exact,
mathematical--c'est une question d' arithmetique, seulement, nest-ce
pas,