jubilant acclaim. Hip, hip, hip,
hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! People rushed into each other's arms; men,
women, and children cried and kissed each other. Croupiers, who never
feel, who never tremble, who never care whether black wins or red loses,
took snuff from each other's boxes, and laughed for joy; and Lenoir the
dauntless, the INVINCIBLE Lenoir, wiped the drops of perspiration from
his calm forehead, as he drew the enemy's last rouleau into his till. He
had conquered. The Persians were beaten, horse and foot--the Armada had
gone down. Since Wellington shut up his telescope at Waterloo, when the
Prussians came charging on to the field, and the Guard broke and fled,
there had been no such heroic endurance, such utter defeat, such signal
and crowning victory. Vive Lenoir! I am a Lenoirite. I have read his
newspapers, strolled in his gardens, listened to his music, and rejoice
in his victory: I am glad he beat those Contrebanquists. Dissipati sunt.
The game is up with them.

The instances of this man's magnanimity are numerous, and worthy of
Alexander the Great, or Harry the Fifth, or Robin Hood. Most gentle is
he, and thoughtful to the poor, and merciful to the vanquished.
When Jeremy Diddler, who had lost twenty pounds at his table, lay in
inglorious pawn at his inn--when O'Toole could not leave Noirbourg until
he had received his remittances from Ireland--the noble Lenoir
paid Diddler's inn bill, advanced O'Toole money upon his well-known
signature, franked both of them back to their native country again; and
has never, wonderful to state, been paid from that day to this. If you
will go play at his table, you may; but nobody forces you. If you lose,
pay with a cheerful heart. Dulce est desipere in loco. This is not a
treatise of morals. Friar Tuck was not an exemplary ecclesiastic, nor
Robin Hood a model man; but he was a jolly outlaw; and I dare say the
Sheriff of Nottingham, whose money he took, rather relished his feast at
Robin's green table.

And if you lose, worthy friend, as possibly you will, at Lenoir's pretty
games, console yourself by thinking that it is much better for you in
the end that you should lose, than that you should win. Let me, for my
part, make a clean breast of it, and own that your humble servant did,
on one occasion, win a score of Napoleons; and beginning with a sum of
no less than five shillings. But until I had lost them again I was so
feverish, excited, and uneasy, that I had neither de