ase upon one point,--Kraus was sure to know nothing
of his late losses at play; in fact, out of his little den wherein he
sat he seemed to be aware of nothing in the whole wide world. A small
"slip," which arrived each morning from Frankfort, told him the current
exchanges of the day. The faces of his clients revealed all the rest But
Dalton was greatly deceived on this point There was not the slightest
incident of Baden with which he was not familiar, nor any occurrence in
its life of dissipation on which he was uninformed. His knowledge was
not the offspring of any taste for scandal, or any liking for the secret
gossiping of society. No; his was a purely practical and professional
information. The archduke who had lost so heavily at "roulette" would
need a loan on the morrow; the count who was about to elope with the
marchioness must have bills on Paris; the colonel who had shot the baron
in a duel could n't escape over the frontier without money. In a word,
every vice and iniquity seemed the tributaries of his trade; and whether
to consummate their wickedness or escape its penalty, men must first
come to Abel Kraus.

To see him crouching behind his little desk, poring over the scattered
fragments of dirty papers, which were his only books, you would never
have suspected that he had a thought above the mystic calculations
before him. Watch him more narrowly, however, and you will perceive that
not a figure can cross the street and approach his door without meeting
a shrewd, quick glance from those dark eyes; while a faint muttering
sound betrays his detection of the visitor's object.

Long, then, before Dalton swaggered up to the moneychanger's den, Abel
knew every circumstance of the previous night, and had actually before
him, on his desk, a correct account of all the sums he had lost at play.
Abel was not unprepared for such tidings. Dalton was precisely the man
to rush headlong into play the moment fortune turned with him, and the
pang of defeat was added to the bitterness of a loss; Abel only wondered
that the reverse had not come earlier. And so he mumbled below his
breath, as with his hat set jauntily on one side, and his hands stuck
carelessly beneath his coat-tails, Dalton came forward.

Peter had so far "got up" his air of easy indifference as to whistle
a tune; but, somehow, as he drew nearer to the door, the sounds waxed
fainter and fainter, and, before he had crossed the threshold, bad sunk
away into th