e he was too shrewd; but he made endless
calculations upon the probability of drawing prizes,--provided the
tickets were really all sold, and the wheel fairly managed. A dice-box
was always at hand upon the mantel. He had portraits of celebrated
racers, both quadruped and biped, and he could tell the fastest time
ever made by either. His manipulation of cards was, as his friends
averred, one of the fine arts; and in all the games he had wrought out
problems of chances, and knew the probability of every contingency. A
stock-list was always tacked above his secretary, and another
constantly in his pocket. And this evening he had brought home a
revolving disk, having figures of various values engraved around its
edge, carefully poised, with a hair-spring pointer, like a hand on a
dial-plate.

"What have you got, John?" asked his wife.

"Only a toy, a plaything, deary. See it spin!" and he gave the disk a
whirl.

"But what is it _for_?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. I thought we could amuse ourselves in
turning it for the largest throws."

"Is that all? It is a heavy thing, and must have cost a good lot of
money."

"Not much. Now see! You know I have tried to show you how chance rules
the world; and if you once get the chances in your favor, all is right.
Now suppose we take this wheel, and on the number 2,000 we paste
'Michigan Central,' 'Western' over 1,000, 'Vermont and Massachusetts'
over 500, 'Cary Improvement' over 400, and so on. Now, after a certain
number of revolutions, by keeping account, we get the chance of each
stock to come up."

"I don't understand."

"I don't suppose you do; you don't give your mind to it, as I do."

"But you know you had the same notion once about cards, and pasted the
names of the stocks on the court cards; and then you shuffled and cut
and dealt and turned up, night after night."

"Little doxy! small piece of property! you'd best attend to that baby,
and other matters that you know something about."

The "little doxy" felt strongly inclined to cry, but she kept back the
sobs and said, "You know, John, how sullen and almost hateful you were
before, when you were bewitched after those mean stocks. I don't think
you should meddle with such things; they are too big for you. Let the
rich fools gamble, if they want to; if _they_ lose, they can afford it,
and nobody cares but to laugh at them. Oh, John, you promised me you
wouldn't gamble any more."

"Well, I don't gamble. I hav