with consummate skill, won the
game: soon after which he rose up, and making a graceful, respectful bow
to the rest of the company, he retired. Not being able to catch his eye,
so intent was he on his game, I felt some curiosity to know whether he
was a Glonglim; but could not ascertain the fact, as some of whom the
Brahmin inquired, said that he was, while others maintained that he was
not. His adversary, however, evidently belonged to that class, and, when
flushed with hope, reminded me of the feather-hunter. At first he
endeavoured, by forced smiles, to conceal his rage and disappointment.
He then bit his lips with vexation, and challenged one of the bystanders
to play for a smaller stake. Fortune seemed about to smile on him on
this occasion; but one of the company, who appeared to be very much
respected by the rest, detected the little man in some false play, and
publicly exposing him, broke up the game. I understood afterwards, that
before the fair was over, the gamester avenged himself for this injury
in the other's blood: that he then returned to the fair, secretly
entered another gambling booth, where he betted so rashly, that he soon
lost not only his patrimonial estate, which was large, but his acquired
wealth, which was much larger. Having lost all his property, and even
his clothes, he then staked and lost his liberty, and even his teeth,
which were very good; and he will thus be compelled to live on soups for
the rest of his life.

I saw several other matches played, in which great sums were betted,
great skill was exhibited, and occasionally much unfairness practised.
There was one man in the crowd, whose extraordinary good fortune I could
not but admire. He went about from table to table, sometimes betting
high and sometimes low, but was generally successful, until he had won
as much as he could fairly carry; after which he went out, and amused
himself at a puppet-show, and the stall of a cake-woman, with whom he
had formerly quarrelled, but who now, when she learnt his success, was
obsequiously civil to him. I did not see that he manifested superior
skill, but still he was successful; and in his last great stake with a
young, but not inexpert player, he won the game, though the chances were
three to two against him. "Surely," thought I, "fortune rules the
destinies of man in the moon as well as on the earth."

On looking now at my watch, I found that I had been longer a witness of
these trials of skil