P. Sybarite failed to hear the rest. All the lights were on again,
full blast. The croupier tossed him a chocolate token. He was
conscious that he touched it with numb and witless fingers,
mechanically pushing it upon the red diamond.
Ensued another awful, soul-sickening minute of suspense....
"Twenty-five, red--!"
A second brown chip appeared magically on top of the first. P.
Sybarite regarded both stupidly; afraid to touch them, his brain
communicated to his hand the impulse to remove the chips ere it was
too late, but the hand hung moveless in listless mutiny.
"_Thirty-four red_--!"
Two more chips were added to his stack.
And this time his brain sulked. If his body wouldn't heed its plain
and sagacious admonition--very well!--it just wouldn't bother to
signal any further advice.
But quite instinctively his hand moved out, tenderly embraced the four
brown chips, and transferred them to the green area dominated by the
black diamond.
"_Twelve, black_--!"
Forty dollars were represented in that stunted pillar of brown wafers!
P. Sybarite experienced an effect of coming to his senses after an
abbreviated and, to tell the truth, somewhat nightmarish nap. Aping
the manner of one or two other players whom he had observed before
this madness possessed him, he thrust the chips out of the charmed
circle of chance, and nodded again (with what a seasoned air!) to the
croupier.
"Cash or chips?" enquired that functionary.
"Oh--cash, thank you."
The chips gathered into the company of their brethren, two
twenty-dollar bills replaced them.
Stuffing these into his pocket, P. Sybarite turned and strolled
indifferently toward the door.
"Better leave while your luck holds," Intelligence counselled.
"Right you are," he admitted fairly. "I'll go home now before anybody
gets this away from me."
"Sensible of you," Intelligence approved.
"Still," suggested the small but clear voice of Greed, "you've got
your original five dollars yet to lose. Be a sport. Don't go without
turning in a cent to the house. It wouldn't look pretty."
"There's something in that," admitted P. Sybarite again.
Nevertheless, he never quite understood how it was that his feet
carried him to the other roulette table, at the end of the salon
opposite that at which he had been playing; or how it was that his
fingers produced and coolly handed over the board, one of the
twenty-dollar notes rather than the modest five he had meant to risk.
"How many?" the new croupier asked pleasantly.
P. Sybarite pulled a doubtful mouth. Five dollars' worth was all he
really wanted. What on earth would he do with all the chips twenty
dollars would buy? He'd need a bushel measure!
Before he could make up his mind, however, exactly twenty white
counters were meted out to him.
"What are these worth?" he demanded incredulously, dropping into a
chair.
"One dollar each," he was informed.
"Indeed?" he replied, politely smothering a slight yawn.
But he conceived a new respect for those infatuated men who so
recklessly peppered the lay-out with chips--singly and in little piles
of five and ten--worth one-hundred cents each!
However, to save his face, he'd have to go through his twenty. But
after that--exit!
He made this promise to himself.
Prying a single chip apart from its fellows, he tossed it heedlessly
upon the numbered squares. It landed upon its rim, rolled toward the
wheel, and fainted gracefully upon the green compartment numbered 00.
The croupier cocked an eyebrow at him, as if questioning his
intention, at the instant the ivory ball began to sing its song of a
single note. Abruptly it was chattering; in another instant it was
still.
"Double O!" announced a voice.
A player next P. Sybarite swore soulfully.
Thirty-five white chips were stacked alongside the winning stake. With
unbecoming haste P. Sybarite removed them.
"Well," he sighed privately, "there's one thing certain: this won't
last. But I don't like to seem a piker. I'll just make sure of this
one: it can't win. And at that, I'll be another fifteen dollars in."
Deliberately he shifted the nineteen remaining of his original stack
to keep company with his winning chip on the Double O....
A minute or so later the man at his elbow said excitedly: "I'll be
damned if it didn't repeat! Can you beat that--!"
P. Sybarite stared stupidly.
"How's that?" he said.
"Double O," the croupier answered: "the second time."
"This is becoming uncanny," P. Sybarite observed to himself;
and--"Cash!" said he aloud with cold decision.
Seven new one-hundred dollar certificates were placed in his hand. In
a daze he counted, folded, and pocketed them. While thus engaged he
heard the ball spin again. His original twenty dollars remained upon
the double naught. Ten turned up: his stake was gathered in.
"You've had enough," Intelligence advised.
"Perfectly true," P. Sybarite admitted.
This time his anatomy proved quite docile. He found himself at the
foot of the steps, fatuously smiling at the doorkeeper.
"He ain't come in yet," said the latter; "but he's liable to be here
any minute now."
"Oh, yes," said P. Sybarite brightly, after a brief pause--"Mr.
Penfield, of course. Sorry I can't wait."
"Well, you'll want your hat before you go--won't you?"
Placing an incredulous hand upon the crown of his head, P. Sybarite
realised that it was covered exclusively with hair.
"I must have put it down somewhere upstairs," he murmured in panic.
"Mebbe you left it with Pete before you went up."
"Perhaps I did."
Turning back to the lounge, he entered to find it deserted save for
the somnolent old gentleman and the hospitable Pete, but for whom P.
Sybarite would probably never have known the delirious joy of that
internal celebration or found the courage to risk his first bet.
And suddenly the fifty-cent tip previously bestowed upon the servitor
seemed, to one unexpectedly fallen heir to the princely fortune then
in P. Sybarite's pockets, the very nadir of beggarliness.
"Pete," said he with owlish gravity, "I begin to see that I have done
you an inexcusable injustice."
Giggling, the negro scratched his head.
"Well, suh," he admitted, "Ah finds that gemmun gen'ly does change
they min's erbout me, aftuh they done cut er melon, like."
With the air of an emperor, P. Sybarite gave the negro a twenty-dollar
bill.
"And now," he cut short a storm of thanks, "if you'll be good enough
to give me just one more glass of champagne, I think I'll totter
home."
"Yas-_suh!_"
In a twinkling a glass was in his hand. As if it were so much
water--in short, indifferently--P. Sybarite tossed it off.
"And my hat."
"Yo' hat?" Pete iterated in surprise. "Yo' didn't leaf yo' hat wif me,
suh; yo' done tek it wif yo' when yo' went upstahs."
"Oh," murmured P. Sybarite, dashed.
He turned to the door, hesitated, turned back, and solemnly sat
himself down.
"Pete," said he, extending his right foot, "I wish you'd do something
for me."
"Yas-suh!"
"Take off my shoe."
Staring with naïf incredulity until assured of the gentleman's
complete seriousness, the negro plumped down upon his knees, unlaced,
and removed the shoe.
"It's a shocking shoe," observed P. Sybarite dreamily.
Bending forward he tucked his original five-dollar note into the toe
of the despised footgear.
"I am not going home broke," he explained laboriously to Pete; "as I
certainly shall if I dare go upstairs again to find my hat."
"Yo's sholly sens'ble," Pete approved. "But they ain't no reason why
yo' sho'd tek enny mo' chances ef yo' don't wantuh," he added,
knotting the laces. "I'd just as leave's not go fetch yo' hat."
"You needn't bother," P. Sybarite returned with dignity.