little official
flatteries which mean so much and so little, were especially reserved
for _him_; and the unlucky player who watched his solitary Napoleon
"raked in" by a yawning, listless croupier, became suddenly aware, by
the increased alacrity of look around him, that a higher interest was
awakened as Peter drew nigh.

The "Count's" chair was ostentatiously placed next the banker's; a store
of cards to mark the chances laid before him. The grave croupier----he
looked like an archdeacon--passed his gold snuff-box across the table;
the smartly wigged and waistcoated one at his side presented the cards
to cut, with some whispered remark that was sure to make Dalton laugh
heartily. The sensation of this _entree_ was certain to last some
minutes; and even the impatience of the players to resume the game was
a tribute that Dalton accepted as complimentary to the bustle of his
approach.

In accordance with the popular superstition of the play-table, Dalton's
luck was an overmatch for all the skill of more accomplished gamblers;
knowing nothing whatever of the game, only aware when he had won or
lost, by seeing that his stake had doubled or disappeared, he was an
immense winner. Night after night the same fortune attended him, and so
unerringly seemed all his calculations made, that the very caprices of
his play looked like well-studied and deep combinations. If many of
the bystanders were disposed to this opinion, the "bankers" thought
otherwise; they knew that,-in the end, the hour of retribution must
come, and, through all their losses, not only observed every mark of
courteous deference towards him, but by many a bland smile and many a
polite gesture seemed to intimate the pleasure they felt in his good
fortune. This was all that was wanting to fill up the measure of
Dalton's delight.

"There isn't a bit of envy or bad feeling about them chaps," he would
often say; "whether I carry away forty Naps, or four hundred of a night,
they 're just as civil. Faix! he knew many a born gentleman might take a
lesson from them."

So long as he continued to win, Dalton felt comparatively little
interest in play, beyond the notice his presence and his large stakes
were sure to excite. As a game it possessed no hold upon him; and when
he had changed his heaps of glittering gold for notes, he arose to leave
the table, and to forget all that had occurred there as matters of no
possible interest to remember.

Such was no longer the