stolen the money. It
(and a vast amount more) had been honestly come by. He did not lie when
he said that he was staying at the Hotel de l'Europe, Aix-les-Bains,
honoured by the late Queen Victoria (pedantic accuracy requires the
correction that the august lady rented the annexe, the Villa Victoria,
on the other side of the shady way--but no matter--an hotel and its
annexe are the same thing) nor did he lie in boasting of his prodigious
prosperity. Aristide was in clover. For the first, and up to now as I
write, the only, time in his life he realized the gorgeous visions of
pallid years. He was leading the existence of the amazing rich. He could
drink champagne--not your miserable _tisane_ at five francs a quart--but
real champagne, with year of vintage and _gout american_ or _gout
anglais_ marked on label, fabulously priced; he could dine lavishly at
the Casino restaurants or at Nikola's, prince of restaurateurs, among
the opulent and the fair; he could clothe himself in attractive raiment;
he could step into a fiacre and bid the man drive and not care whither
he went or what he paid; he could also distribute five-franc pieces to
lame beggars. He scattered his money abroad with both hands, according
to his expansive temperament; and why not, when he was drawing wealth
out of an inexhaustible fount? The process was so simple, so sure. All
you had to do was to believe in the cards on which you staked your
money. If you knew you were going to win, you won. Nothing could be
easier.

He had drifted into Aix-les-Bains from Geneva on the lamentable
determination of a commission agency in the matter of some patent fuel,
with a couple of louis in his pocket forlornly jingling the tale of his
entire fortune. As this was before the days when you had to exhibit
certificates of baptism, marriage, sanity and bank-balance before being
allowed to enter the baccarat rooms, Aristide paid his two francs and
made a bee line for the tables. I am afraid Aristide was a gambler. He
was never so happy as when taking chances; his whole life was a gamble,
with Providence holding the bank. Before the night was over he had
converted his two louis into fifty. The next day they became five
hundred. By the end of a week his garments were wadded with bank notes
whose value amounted to a sum so stupendous as to be beyond need of
computation. He was a celebrity in the place and people nudged each
other as he passed by. And Aristide passed by with a swag