n these things, I should not buy
them: they will do to melt, if for no other purpose. Will you have half
the money?--speak, or I peach."

Simon's resolves about virtue were dissipated instantaneously. "Give me
half," he said, "and let me go.--What scoundrels are these pawnbrokers!"
ejaculated he, as he passed out of the accursed shop, "seeking every
wicked pretext to rob the poor man of his hard-won gain."

When he had marched forwards for a street or two, Gambouge counted the
money which he had received, and found that he was in possession of
no less than a hundred francs. It was night, as he reckoned out his
equivocal gains, and he counted them at the light of a lamp. He looked
up at the lamp, in doubt as to the course he should next pursue: upon
it was inscribed the simple number, 152. "A gambling-house," thought
Gambouge. "I wish I had half the money that is now on the table, up
stairs."

He mounted, as many a rogue has done before him, and found half a
hundred persons busy at a table of rouge et noir. Gambouge's five
napoleons looked insignificant by the side of the heaps which were
around him; but the effects of the wine, of the theft, and of the
detection by the pawnbroker, were upon him, and he threw down his
capital stoutly upon the 0 0.

It is a dangerous spot that 0 0, or double zero; but to Simon it
was more lucky than to the rest of the world. The ball went spinning
round--in "its predestined circle rolled," as Shelley has it, after
Goethe--and plumped down at last in the double zero. One hundred and
thirty-five gold napoleons (louis they were then) were counted out to
the delighted painter. "Oh, Diabolus!" cried he, "now it is that I
begin to believe in thee! Don't talk about merit," he cried; "talk about
fortune. Tell me not about heroes for the future--tell me of ZEROES."
And down went twenty napoleons more upon the 0.

The Devil was certainly in the ball: round it twirled, and dropped
into zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond. Our friend
received five hundred pounds for his stake; and the croupiers and
lookers-on began to stare at him.

There were twelve thousand pounds on the table. Suffice it to say, that
Simon won half, and retired from the Palais Royal with a thick bundle
of bank-notes crammed into his dirty three-cornered hat. He had been but
half an hour in the place, and he had won the revenues of a prince for
half a year!

Gambouge, as soon as he felt that he was a capi