found a French Baron whom
he knew, and then, after a further hour in the _cafe_, he returned to
his hotel in Trouville, where he dressed carefully and later on appeared
at dinner.

Whenever funds were especially low, Ralph Ansell always made it a rule
to order an expensive dinner. It preserved the illusion that he was
wealthy. He was especially fond of Russian Bortch soup, and this having
been ordered, it was served with great ceremony, a large piece of cream
being placed in the centre of the rich, brown liquid.

The dinner he ate that night was assuredly hardly in keeping with the
ugly fact that, within the next four days, if funds were not
forthcoming, he would find himself outside the hotel without his
newly-acquired luggage.

Truly his luck was clean out.

After dinner he sat outside the hotel for an hour, watching people pass
up and down the _plage_. The evening was close, and the sand reflected
back the hot rays of the sun absorbed during the day.

He was thinking. Only those three louis remained between him and
starvation. He must get money somehow--by what means it mattered not, so
long as he got it.

Suddenly, with a resolve, he rose and, passing along the _plage_,
arrived at a large, white house overlooking the sea, where, on the
second floor, he entered a luxuriously-furnished suite of rooms where
roulette was in full swing.

Many smartly-dressed men and women were playing around the green
table--some winning, some losing heavily.

The room, filled to overflowing, was almost suffocating, while, combined
with the chatter of women and the lower voices of men, was the
distinctive sound of the clink of gold as the croupier raked it in or
paid it out.

To several acquaintances Ralph nodded merrily as he strolled through the
room, until suddenly he came upon two men, wealthy he knew them to be,
with whom he had played cards on the previous night.

"Ah, messieurs!" he cried, greeting them merrily. "Are you prepared to
give me my revenge--eh?"

"Quite, m'sieur," was the reply of the elder of the men. "Shall it be in
the next room? There is a table free."

"At your pleasure," was "The American's" reply. The man who had proved
so shrewd on the previous night was absent, but the two other men were,
he knew, somewhat inexperienced at cards.

They passed into the adjoining room and there sat down, a stranger
joining them. Others were playing in the same room, including at least a
couple of "crooks" well