Sortez, sortez," she shouted to the young man, until I leant over in her direction and whispered in her ear that no shouting was allowed, nor even loud speaking, since to do so disturbed the calculations of the players, and might lead to our being ejected.
"How provoking!" she retorted.
"Then the young man is done for! I suppose he WISHES to be ruined. Yet I could not bear to see him have to return it all.
What a fool the fellow is!" and the old lady turned sharply away.
On the left, among the players at the other half of the table, a young lady was playing, with, beside her, a dwarf.
Who the dwarf may have been—whether a relative or a person whom she took with her to act as a foil—I do not know; but I had noticed her there on previous occasions, since, everyday, she entered the Casino at one o'clock precisely, and departed at two—thus playing for exactly one hour.
Being well-known to the attendants, she always had a seat provided for her; and, taking some gold and a few thousand-franc notes out of her pocket—would begin quietly, coldly, and after much calculation, to stake, and mark down the figures in pencil on a paper, as though striving to work out a system according to which, at given moments, the odds might group themselves.
Always she staked large coins, and either lost or won one, two, or three thousand francs a day, but not more; after which she would depart.
The Grandmother took a long look at her.
"THAT woman is not losing," she said.
"To whom does she belong?
Do you know her?
Who is she?"
"She is, I believe, a Frenchwoman," I replied.
"Ah! A bird of passage, evidently.
Besides, I can see that she has her shoes polished.
Now, explain to me the meaning of each round in the game, and the way in which one ought to stake."
Upon this I set myself to explain the meaning of all the combinations—of "rouge et noir," of "pair et impair," of "manque et passe," with, lastly, the different values in the system of numbers.
The Grandmother listened attentively, took notes, put questions in various forms, and laid the whole thing to heart.
Indeed, since an example of each system of stakes kept constantly occurring, a great deal of information could be assimilated with ease and celerity.
The Grandmother was vastly pleased.
"But what is zero?" she inquired.
"Just now I heard the flaxen-haired croupier call out 'zero!'
And why does he keep raking in all the money that is on the table?
To think that he should grab the whole pile for himself!
What does zero mean?"
"Zero is what the bank takes for itself.
If the wheel stops at that figure, everything lying on the table becomes the absolute property of the bank.
Also, whenever the wheel has begun to turn, the bank ceases to pay out anything."
"Then I should receive nothing if I were staking?"
"No; unless by any chance you had PURPOSELY staked on zero; in which case you would receive thirty-five times the value of your stake."
"Why thirty-five times, when zero so often turns up?
And if so, why do not more of these fools stake upon it?"
"Because the number of chances against its occurrence is thirty-six."
"Rubbish!
Potapitch, Potapitch!
Come here, and I will give you some money."
The old lady took out of her pocket a tightly-clasped purse, and extracted from its depths a ten-gulden piece.
"Go at once, and stake that upon zero."
"But, Madame, zero has only this moment turned up," I remonstrated; "wherefore, it may not do so again for ever so long.
Wait a little, and you may then have a better chance."
"Rubbish! Stake, please."
"Pardon me, but zero might not turn up again until, say, tonight, even though you had staked thousands upon it. It often happens so."
"Rubbish, rubbish!
Who fears the wolf should never enter the forest.
What? We have lost?
Then stake again."
A second ten-gulden piece did we lose, and then I put down a third.
The Grandmother could scarcely remain seated in her chair, so intent was she upon the little ball as it leapt through the notches of the ever-revolving wheel.
However, the third ten-gulden piece followed the first two.