midst
of tumult. He had reached that statesmanship of gambling which in Paris,
let us say in passing, is the livelihood of thousands who are strong
enough to look every night into an abyss without getting a vertigo. With
his four hundred francs, Philippe resolved to make his fortune that day.
He put aside, in his boots, two hundred francs, and kept the other two
hundred in his pocket. At three o'clock he went to the gambling-house
(which is now turned into the theatre of the Palais-Royal), where the
bank accepted the largest sums. He came out half an hour later with
seven thousand francs in his pocket. Then he went to see Florentine,
paid the five hundred francs which he owed to her, and proposed a supper
at the Rocher de Cancale after the theatre. Returning to his game, along
the rue de Sentier, he stopped at Giroudeau's newspaper-office to notify
him of the gala. By six o'clock Philippe had won twenty-five thousand
francs, and stopped playing at the end of ten minutes as he had promised
himself to do. That night, by ten o'clock, he had won seventy-five
thousand francs. After the supper, which was magnificent, Philippe, by
that time drunk and confident, went back to his play at midnight. In
defiance of the rule he had imposed upon himself, he played for an
hour and doubled his fortune. The bankers, from whom, by his system of
playing, he had extracted one hundred and fifty thousand francs, looked
at him with curiosity.

"Will he go away now, or will he stay?" they said to each other by a
glance. "If he stays he is lost."

Philippe thought he had struck a vein of luck, and stayed. Towards three
in the morning, the hundred and fifty thousand francs had gone back to
the bank. The colonel, who had imbibed a considerable quantity of grog
while playing, left the place in a drunken state, which the cold of the
outer air only increased. A waiter from the gambling-house followed him,
picked him up, and took him to one of those horrible houses at the door
of which, on a hanging lamp, are the words: "Lodgings for the night."
The waiter paid for the ruined gambler, who was put to bed, where he
remained till Christmas night. The managers of gambling-houses have some
consideration for their customers, especially for high players. Philippe
awoke about seven o'clock in the evening, his mouth parched, his face
swollen, and he himself in the grip of a nervous fever. The strength
of his constitution enabled him to get home on foot, whe