days preceding festivals, Agathe went to church and stayed there
a long time; no doubt she confessed and prepared for the communion. It
was now the day before Christmas; Madame Descoings would certainly go
out to buy some dainties for the "reveillon," the midnight meal; and
she might also take occasion to pay up her stake. The lottery was drawn
every five days in different localities, at Bordeaux, Lyons, Lille,
Strasburg, and Paris. The Paris lottery was drawn on the twenty-fifth
of each month, and the lists closed on the twenty-fourth, at midnight.
Philippe studied all these points and set himself to watch. He came
home at midday; the Descoings had gone out, and had taken the key of the
_appartement_. But that was no difficulty. Philippe pretended to have
forgotten something, and asked the concierge to go herself and get a
locksmith, who lived close by, and who came at once and opened the door.
The villain's first thought was the bed; he uncovered it, passed his
hands over the mattress before he examined the bedstead, and at the
lower end felt the pieces wrapped up in paper. He at once ripped the
ticking, picked out twenty napoleons, and then, without taking time
to sew up the mattress, re-made the bed neatly enough, so that Madame
Descoings could suspect nothing.

The gambler stole off with a light foot, resolving to play at three
different times, three hours apart, and each time for only ten minutes.
Thorough-going players, ever since 1786, the time at which public
gaming-houses were established,--the true players whom the government
dreaded, and who ate up, to use a gambling term, the money of the
bank,--never played in any other way. But before attaining this measure
of experience they lost fortunes. The whole science of gambling-houses
and their gains rests upon three things: the impassibility of the bank;
the even results called "drawn games," when half the money goes to
the bank; and the notorious bad faith authorized by the government,
in refusing to hold or pay the player's stakes except optionally. In
a word, the gambling-house, which refuses the game of a rich and cool
player, devours the fortune of the foolish and obstinate one, who is
carried away by the rapid movement of the machinery of the game. The
croupiers at "trente et quarante" move nearly as fast as the ball.

Philippe had ended by acquiring the sang-froid of a commanding general,
which enables him to keep his eye clear and his mind prompt in the