"It's about time," said Simpson one evening, "that we went to the tables
and--er----" (he adjusted his spectacles)--"had a little flutter."
We all looked at him in silent admiration.
"Oh, Samuel," sighed Myra, "and I promised your aunt that you shouldn't
gamble while you were away."
"But, my dear Myra, it's the first thing the fellows at the club ask you
when you've been to the Riviera--if you've had any luck."
"Well, you've had a lot of luck," said Archie. "Several times when
you've been standing on the heights and calling attention to the
beautiful view below I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,'
but something, some mysterious agency within, has kept me back."
"All the fellows at the club----"
Simpson is popularly supposed to belong to a Fleet Street Toilet and
Hairdressing Club, where for three guineas a year he gets shaved every
day, and his hair cut whenever Myra insists. On the many occasions when
he authorises a startling story of some well-known statesman with the
words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the club
to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the barber's
assistant has been gossiping over the lather.
"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could
be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms.
And then when the hairdress--when your friends at the club ask if you've
had any luck at the tables you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"
"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "_Quae mensæ?_"
But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen
enough to go.
"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."
"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was
telling me about his system last night. At least, he was just beginning
when I went to sleep." He applied another match to his pipe and went on,
as if the idea had suddenly struck him, "Perhaps it was only his
internal system he meant. I didn't wait."
"Samuel, you _are_ quite well inside, aren't you?"
"Quite, Myra. But I _have_ invented a sort of system for _roulette_,
which we might----"
"There's only one system which is any good," pronounced Archie. "It's
the system by which, when you've lost all your own money, you turn to
the man next to you and say, 'Lend me a louis, dear old chap, till
Christmas; I've forgotten my purse.'"
"No systems," said Dahlia. "Let's make a collection and put it all on
one number and hope it will win."
Dahlia had obviously been reading novels about people who break the
bank.
"It's as good a way of losing as any other," said Archie. "Let's do it
for our first gamble, anyway. Simpson, as our host, shall put the money
on. I, as his oldest friend, shall watch him to see that he does it.
What's the number to be?"
We all thought hard for several moments.
"Samuel, what's your age?" asked Myra at last.
"Right off the board," said Thomas.
"You're not really more than thirty-six?" Myra whispered to him. "Tell
me as a secret."
"Peter's nearly two," said Dahlia.
"Do you think you could nearly put our money on 'two'?" asked Archie.
"I once made seventeen," I said. "On that never-to-be-forgotten day when
I went in first with Archie----"
"That settles it. Here's to the highest score of The Rabbits'
wicket-keeper. To-morrow afternoon we put our money on seventeen.
Simpson, you have between now and 3.30 to-morrow to perfect your French
delivery of the magic word _dix-sept_."
I went to bed a proud but anxious man that night. It was _my_ famous
score which had decided the figure that was to bring us fortune ... and
yet ... and yet ...
Suppose eighteen turned up? The remorse, the bitterness! "If only," I
should tell myself--"if only we had run three instead of two for that
cut to square-leg!" Suppose it were sixteen! "Why, oh why," I should
groan, "did I make the scorer put that bye down as a hit?" Suppose it
wore thirty-four! But there my responsibility ended ... If it were going
to be thirty-four, they should have used one of Archie's scores, and
made a good job of it.
At 3.30 next day we were in the fatal building. I should like to pause
here and describe my costume to you, which was a quiet grey in the best
of taste, but Myra says that if I do this I must describe hers too, a
feat beyond me. Sufficient that she looked dazzling, that as a party we
were remarkably well-dressed, and that Simpson--murmuring "_dix-sept_"
to himself at intervals--led the way through the rooms till he found a
table to his liking.
"Aren't you excited?" whispered Myra to me.
"Frightfully," I said, and left my mouth well open.
I don't quite know what picture of the event Myra and I had conjured up
in our minds, but I fancy it was one something like this. At the
entrance into the rooms of such a large and obviously distinguished
party there would be a slight sensation among the crowd, and way would
be made for us at the most important table. It would then leak out that
Chevalier Simpson--the tall poetical-looking gentleman in the middle, my
dear--had brought with him no less a sum than thirty francs with which
to break the bank, and that he proposed to do this in one daring _coup_.
At this news the players at the other tables would hastily leave their
winnings (or losings) and crowd round us. Chevalier Simpson, pale but
controlled, would then place his money on seventeen--"_dix-sept_," he
would say to the croupier to make it quite clear--and the ball would be
spun. As it slowed down the tension in the crowd would increase. "_Mon
Dieu_!" a woman would cry in a shrill voice; there, would be guttural
exclamations from Germans; at the edge of the crowd strong men would
swoon. At last a sudden shriek ... and the croupier's voice, trembling
for the first time for thirty years, "_Dix-sept!_" Then gold and notes
would be pushed at the Chevalier. He would stuff his pockets with them;
he would fill his hat with them; we others, we would stuff our pockets
too. The bank would send out for more money. There would be loud cheers
from all the company (with the exception of one man, who had put five
francs on sixteen and had shot himself) and we should be carried--that
is to say, we four men--shoulder high to the door, while by the deserted
table Myra and Dahlia clung to each other weeping tears of happiness ...
Something like that.
What happened was different. As far as I could follow, it was this. Over
the heads of an enormous, badly-dressed and utterly indifferent crowd
Simpson handed his thirty francs to the croupier.
"_Dix-sept_," he said.
The croupier with his rake pushed the money on to seventeen.
Another croupier with his rake pulled it off again ... and stuck to it.
The day's fun was over.
* * * * *
"What _did_ win?" asked Myra some minutes later, when the fact that we
should never see our money again had been brought home to her.
"Zero," said Archie.