cult to get Europe on to a basis
of common sense when _homo sapiens_ has such a limited brain-box.

"I'm staking on the number 13 now," says one. "The number 13 has not
come up for thirty-four times. It's almost bound to come soon."

"Why's that?"

"So as to correspond to the theory of chances."

"I don't suppose the number 13 is much excited about it."

The number 13 comes up. The exultant gambler pockets thirty-six times
his stake, and then engrosses himself in his exercise-book of figures
to find another number which hasn't come up for a long while.

He stakes on 7.

Thirteen comes up again.

"What a fool I was," he whispers in mortification. "I ought to have
known there was a chance of its coming up a second time."

To the theory of chances most minds are susceptible and this delightful
theory lies at the bottom of most systems.

Not in the case, however, of a certain lady who claimed to have
considerable success. She played by astrology. She kept the record of
the winning numbers. "See," said she, "how many of them are even
numbers."

"Why is that?" I murmured.

"Hercules is in the ascendant this month. That always means more even
numbers."

You do not see the humour of such a remark whilst you are in the
Casino. The strain on the minds of the gamblers tells on your mind,
too. It is terribly tiring for every one taking part, and this is
noticeable in the drawn and fatigued-looking faces. Even the croupiers
have to be changed every hour. The strain is utterly exhausting.

It would doubtless be different in these fine high halls if there were
currents of air, but there are not. It is thousand-times-breathed
gamblers' breath that you are breathing, suffused with the heavy odour
of the expensive perfumes on the women. What a change when you step
outside into the fresh air once more. You realize what it feels like
when the Casino closes, and the maniacs with their hot heads are
actually forced to leave the tables and come out.

To think that at ten in the morning there are queues waiting to get in
and get seats at the tables, and that men and women are ready to remain
at the tables all day, and can live on it and die at it!

Up on the heights above, at Rocco Bruna, is a Saracen-built little town
with strange dark people who seldom come down from the heights. You go
by shady steps between high white walls to a little chapel, and there
on Sunday a beloved _cure_ beguiles an innocent lit