whose contemptuous
behaviour to him had been the most striking, and whom the Chevalier had
begged to remain behind on purpose.

"'That fellow,' one of them cried out. 'You don't know old Francesco
Vertua, Chevalier, or you wouldn't find fault with us for what we did.
You would rather thank us. This Vertua, by birth a Neapolitan, has been
for fifteen years here, in Paris, the most vile, foul, wicked miser and
usurer that could exist. He is lost to every feeling of humanity. If
his own brother were to drag himself to his door, writhing in the death
agony, and curl round about his feet, he wouldn't give a louis d'or to
help him. The curses and execrations of heaps of people, whole families,
whom he has driven to ruin by his infernal machinations, lie heavy on
him. There is nobody who does not pray that vengeance for what he has
done, and is always doing, may overtake him and finish his sin-spotted
life. He has never played, at all events since he has been in Paris,
and you need not be astonished at our surprise when we saw the old
skinflint come to the table. Of course we were just as delighted at
his losing, for it would have been altogether too bad if fortune had
favoured the scoundrel. The wealth of your banque has dazzled the old
noodle. He thought he was going to pluck you, but he has lost his own
feathers. But the thing I can't understand is how he can have made up
his miserly mind to play so high.'

"This, however, did not prove well founded, for the next night Vertua
made his appearance, and staked and lost a great deal more than on the
night before. He was quite impassible all the time; in fact, he now and
then smiled with a bitter irony, as one who knew how utterly
differently everything would soon turn. But his losses swelled like a
mountain avalanche on each of the succeeding nights, so that at last it
was calculated that he had lost to the banque well on to thirty
thousand louis d'or. After this, he came one night, long after the play
had begun, pale as death, with his face all drawn, and stationed
himself at some distance from the table, with his eyes fixed on the
cards which the Chevalier was dealing. At last, when the Chevalier had
shuffled, had the cards cut, and was going to begin the deal, the old
man cried out, in a screaming voice, 'Stop!' Every one looked round,
almost terrified. The old man elbowed his way through the crowd close
up to the Chevalier, and whispered into his ear, 'Chevalier, my house