a few short weeks had
accomplished. Of himself he spoke but little, and never once alluded to
the Callonbys at all; indeed all I could learn was that he had left the
army, and purposed remaining for the winter at Paris, where he appeared
to have entered into all its gaiety and dissipation at once.

"Of course," said he, "you will give up 'sodgering' now; at the best it
is but poor sport after five and twenty, and is perfectly unendurable
when a man has the means of pushing himself in the gay world; and now,
Harry, let us mix a little among the mob here; for Messieurs les
Banquiers don't hold people in estimation who come here only for the
'chapons au riz.' and the champagne glacee, as we should seem to do were
we to stay here much longer."

Such was the whirl of my thoughts, and so great the confusion in my ideas
from all I had just heard, that I felt myself implicitly following every
direction of my cousin with a child-like obedience, of the full extent
of which I became only conscious when I found myself seated at the table
of the Salon, between my cousin Guy and an old, hard-visaged,
pale-countenanced man, who he told me in a whisper was Vilelle the
Minister.

What a study for the man who would watch the passions and emotions of his
fellow-men, would the table of a rouge et noir gambling-house present
--the skill and dexterity which games of other kinds require, being here
wanting, leave the player free to the full abandonment of the passion.
The interest is not a gradually increasing or vacillating one, as fortune
and knowledge of the game favour; the result is uninfluenced by any thing
of his doing; with the last turned card of the croupier is he rich or
ruined; and thus in the very abstraction of the anxiety is this the most
painfully exciting of all gambling whatever; the very rattle of the
dice-box to the hazard player is a relief; and the thought that he is in
some way instrumental in his good or bad fortune gives a turn to his
thoughts. There is something so like the inevitable character of fate
associated with the result of a chance, which you can in no way affect
or avert, that I have, notwithstanding a strong bias for play, ever
dreaded and avoided the rouge et noir table; hitherto prudential motives
had their share in the resolve; a small loss at play becomes a matter of
importance to a sub in a marching regiment; and therefore I was firm in
my determination to avoid the gambling-table. Now my fortunes