ost hopelessly eccentric fellow
that ever was. 'Destiny,' said he 'gives us hints in what way and where
we ought to seek our own benefit; and we have only our own indolence to
blame if we do not heed, do not understand these hints. The Higher
Power that rules over us has whispered quite plainly in your ears, If
you want money and property go and play, else you will be poor and
needy, and never independent, as long as you live.'

"And now for the first time the thought of how wonderfully fortune had
favoured him at the faro-bank took clear and distinct shape in his
mind; and both in his dreams and when awake he heard the banker's
monotonous _gagne_, _perd_,[2] and the rattle of the gold pieces. 'Yes,
it is undoubtedly so,' he said to himself, 'a single night like that
one before would free me from my difficulties, and help me over the
painful embarrassment of being a burden to my friends; it is my duty to
follow the beckoning finger of fate.' The friends who had advised him
to try play, accompanied him to the play-house, and gave him twenty
_Louis d'or_[3] more that he might begin unconcerned.

"If the Chevalier's play had been splendid when he punted for the old
Colonel, it was indeed doubly so now. Blindly and without choice he
drew the cards he staked upon, but the invisible hand of that Higher
Power which is intimately related to Chance, or rather actually is what
we call Chance, seemed to be regulating his play. At the end of the
evening he had won a thousand _Louis d'or_.

"Next morning he awoke with a kind of dazed feeling. The gold pieces he
had won lay scattered about beside him on the table. At the first
moment he fancied he was dreaming; he rubbed his eyes; he grasped the
table and pulled it nearer towards him. But when he began to reflect
upon what had happened, when he buried his fingers amongst the gold
pieces, when he counted them with gratified satisfaction, and even
counted them through again, then delight in the base mammon shot for
the first time like a pernicious poisonous breath through his every
nerve and fibre, then it was all over with the purity of sentiment
which he had so long preserved intact. He could hardly wait for night
to come that he might go to the faro-table again. His good-luck
continued constant, so that after a few weeks, during which he played
nearly every night, he had won a considerable sum.

"Now there are two sorts of players. Play simply as such affords to
many an indescri