e to stake those two coins. Now, how much ought I to
receive? Why do they not pay it out to me? Potapitch! Martha! Where are
they? What has become of our party? Potapitch, Potapitch!"

"Presently, Madame," I whispered. "Potapitch is outside, and they would
decline to admit him to these rooms. See! You are being paid out your
money. Pray take it." The croupiers were making up a heavy packet of
coins, sealed in blue paper, and containing fifty ten gulden pieces,
together with an unsealed packet containing another twenty. I handed
the whole to the old lady in a money-shovel.

"Faites le jeu, messieurs! Faites le jeu, messieurs! Rien ne va plus,"
proclaimed the croupier as once more he invited the company to stake,
and prepared to turn the wheel.

"We shall be too late! He is going to spin again! Stake, stake!" The
Grandmother was in a perfect fever. "Do not hang back! Be quick!" She
seemed almost beside herself, and nudged me as hard as she could.

"Upon what shall I stake, Madame?"

"Upon zero, upon zero! Again upon zero! Stake as much as ever you can.
How much have we got? Seventy ten-gulden pieces? We shall not miss
them, so stake twenty pieces at a time."

"Think a moment, Madame. Sometimes zero does not turn up for two
hundred rounds in succession. I assure you that you may lose all your
capital."

"You are wrong--utterly wrong. Stake, I tell you! What a chattering
tongue you have! I know perfectly well what I am doing." The old lady
was shaking with excitement.

"But the rules do not allow of more than 120 gulden being staked upon
zero at a time."

"How 'do not allow'? Surely you are wrong? Monsieur, monsieur--" here
she nudged the croupier who was sitting on her left, and preparing to
spin--"combien zero? Douze? Douze?"

I hastened to translate.

"Oui, Madame," was the croupier's polite reply. "No single stake must
exceed four thousand florins. That is the regulation."

"Then there is nothing else for it. We must risk in gulden."

"Le jeu est fait!" the croupier called. The wheel revolved, and stopped
at thirty. We had lost!

"Again, again, again! Stake again!" shouted the old lady. Without
attempting to oppose her further, but merely shrugging my shoulders, I
placed twelve more ten-gulden pieces upon the table. The wheel whirled
around and around, with the Grandmother simply quaking as she watched
its revolutions.

"Does she again think that zero is going to be the winning coup?"
thought I, as I