s if necessary. But to
the man who is penniless that is impossible.

He rose and dressed even more carefully than usual. Afterwards he took
his _dejeuner_ in the big _salle-a-manger_ and drank half a bottle of
Krug with it. Like all men of his class, he was fastidious over his food
and wines. The afternoon he spent idling in the casino, and that night
he again visited the private gaming house with his two hundred francs,
or eight pounds, in his pocket.

It proved a gay night, for there was a dance in progress. In the
card-room, however, all was quiet, and there he again met the Russian,
who, however, was playing with three other men, strangers to him.

After he had critically inspected the company, he at length accepted the
invitation of a man he did not know to sit down to a friendly hand. In
those rooms he was believed to be the wealthy American, as he
represented himself to be.

The men he found himself playing with were Frenchmen, and very soon, by
dint of "working the trick," he succeeded in swindling them out of about
fifty pounds.

Then suddenly his luck turned dead against him. In three _coups_ he lost
everything, except two coins he had kept in his pocket.

Again, with a gambler's belief in chance, he made another stake, one of
five hundred francs.

The cards were dealt and played. Again he lost.

His brows knit, for he could not pay.

From his pocket he drew a silver case, and, taking out his card:

SILAS P. HOGGAN,
_San Diego, Cal._

handed it to the man who had invited him to play, with a promise to let
him have the money by noon next day.

In return he was given a card with the name: "PAUL FORESTIER, Chateau de
Polivac, Rhone."

The men bowed to each other with exquisite politeness, and then Ralph
Ansell went out upon the moonlit _plage_ with only two pounds in his
pocket, laughing bitterly at his continued run of ill-luck.

That night he took a long walk for miles beside the rocky coast of
Calvados, through the fashionable villages of Beuzeval and Cabourg,
meeting no one save two mounted gendarmes. The brilliant moon shone over
the Channel, and the cool air was refreshing after the close, stuffy
heat of the gaming-house.

As he walked, much of his adventurous past arose before him. He thought
of Jean, and wondered where she was. Swallowed in the vortex of
lower-class life of Paris--dead, probably.

And "The Eel"? He was still in prison, of course. Would th