great man.

Those words, spoken not four paces from Frascati's, were magnetic
in their effect. The friends dismissed their cab and went up to the
gaming-table.

At the outset they won three thousand francs, then they lost and fell
to five hundred; again they won three thousand seven hundred francs, and
again they lost all but a five-franc piece. After another turn of luck
they staked two thousand francs on an even number to double the stake at
a stroke; an even number had not turned up for five times in succession,
and this was the sixth time. They punted the whole sum, and an odd
number turned up once more.

After two hours of all-absorbing, frenzied excitement, the two dashed
down the staircase with the hundred francs kept back for the dinner.
Upon the steps, between two pillars which support the little sheet-iron
veranda to which so many eyes have been upturned in longing or despair,
Lousteau stopped and looked into Lucien's flushed, excited face.

"Let us just try fifty francs," he said.

And up the stairs again they went. An hour later they owned a thousand
crowns. Black had turned up for the fifth consecutive time; they trusted
that their previous luck would not repeat itself, and put the whole sum
on the red--black turned up for the sixth time. They had lost. It was
now six o'clock.

"Let us just try twenty-five francs," said Lucien.

The new venture was soon made--and lost. The twenty-five francs went in
five stakes. Then Lucien, in a frenzy, flung down his last twenty-five
francs on the number of his age, and won. No words can describe how his
hands trembled as he raked in the coins which the bank paid him one by
one. He handed ten louis to Lousteau.

"Fly!" he cried; "take it to Very's."

Lousteau took the hint and went to order dinner. Lucien, left alone,
laid his thirty louis on the red and won. Emboldened by the inner voice
which a gambler always hears, he staked the whole again on the red, and
again he won. He felt as if there were a furnace within him. Without
heeding the voice, he laid a hundred and twenty louis on the black
and lost. Then to the torturing excitement of suspense succeeded the
delicious feeling of relief known to the gambler who has nothing left
to lose, and must perforce leave the palace of fire in which his dreams
melt and vanish.

He found Lousteau at Very's, and flung himself upon the cookery (to make
use of Lafontaine's expression), and drowned his cares in wine. By nine