he same time taking up the mace
and beginning to amuse themselves at the billiard-table. I looked on;
they asked me to join them; I declined, and professed ignorance of the
game; but their importunities became more pressing, and at last
troublesome. Not a word further was said of the palace admission.
I now judged it time to take my leave, and advancing towards the door
for that purpose, I perceived my companions moved also: I profited by
the hint, and seizing the handle of the door, thanked them for their
civility, assured them I could wait no longer, but would call in
half-an-hour--leaped down the stairs, and did not stop till I reached
_Rue Montmartre_. I afterwards learned this was a common _street trick_
in Paris to decoy strangers to the billiard-table, and had I taken the
mace in hand, it would most probably have been at the expense of a good
dinner for my companions, as a smart for my credulity.

A few evenings subsequent to this common-place incident, I strolled into
a house of play in the palais royal, the situation having been
previously pointed out to me by a friend.[1] The entrance was through a
narrow passage by a silversmith's shop, on the ground floor, at the end
of which a strong light shone through the figures denoting the number of
the house, largely cut in tin; alas! thought I, a fatal number to many
thousands. On the principal landing, being that above the _entre-sol_
story, I gently tapped at a handsome door, which was almost as gently
opened. My friend (for I was not alone,) having deposited his hat and
stick with the garcon, was allowed to pass, but I was stopped for want
of--_whiskers_; till assuring him that I was older than he took me to
be, and an Englishman--I was also permitted to pass. We first entered a
small room, in which was a roulette-table surrounded by players, and
well staked: this communicated by folding-doors with a spacious saloon
with a double table for _Trente-et-un_, or _Rouge et Noir_, round which
were seated the players, behind whom stood a few lookers-on, and still
fewer young men, whose stakes were "few and far between,"--probably
those of cautious adventurers, or novices pecking at the first-fruits of
play. Nothing is better described in books than the folly of _gaming_,
and the sufferings of its victims; but, like Virgil, in his picture of
Heaven, they fall short in describing their extasies; a failing on the
right side, or perhaps purposely made, for the happiness of ma