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Oldpaint was a fellow-traveler of ours from Mentone to Monte Carlo. Not knowing her real name, I call her Oldpaint for sufficient reasons. She was wrinkled with age, and excessively painted. Turner, in his moments of divinest frenzy, would not have laid on the red more boldly. It blazed through her veil. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken, with deep black marks scored beneath them which she had vainly attempted to whiten. The whole expression of her face was desperate. I observed in her hand a ticket stamped Monte Carlo. Then I guessed she was a veteran devotee of roulette. And I was right. For, when I entered the salle de jeu a few hours later, she was already there, comfortably seated at the croupier’s elbow, and evidently at home. It was by closely watching her play that I first came to understand the horrible fascination of the game for its votaries.

Cockspur is another name I was obliged to invent for an Englishman—also a confirmed gambler—whom we first encountered lunching in the Restaurant de Paris at Monte Carlo. This establishment is worthy of its imposing title. There is no better on the Boulevards. It is famous for game in season, and good wines all the year round. When we entered this paradise of gourmets, and dropped quietly into two chairs at a table not far from the door, we did not instantly attract attention. No waiter appearing for a moment, we fell to studying some brilliant frescoes on the ceiling, and noting the sumptuousness of the furniture, the fineness of the linen, the exquisite fragility of the cut-glass. Still no garçon. I turned my head impatiently, and then saw what was the matter. At the third table behind us sat a tall young man, with light, curly hair and mustaches, and by his side a showy woman, who looked like a queen of burlesque in walking-suit. There was an indescribable something in the frizzling of her hair, the look of her eyes, her stereotyped smile, which betrayed the professional winner of applause from crowded parquettes. The man was evidently under her dominion, and was testifying to his complete surrender by ordering on the costliest meats and wines. They did not seem desirous to excite public curiosity, for they spoke low and behaved decorously enough. But the lunch was prodigal, even for that place of extravagances. To serve it had required two waiters, who now, in a moment of pause, hovered about “milord’s” table, wondering what he would condescend to order next. It was plain that they were all expecting liberal pour boires from this spendthrift of a patron. Still other waiters had gathered in the vicinity, as if to pick up some stray crumbs of his bounty. All eyes being focused on this couple, we had apparently escaped observation. I gave notice of my presence by a slight cough, and, to the lasting credit of the Restaurant de Paris, am happy to say that it provoked a prompt response. A smart waiter dutifully detached himself from the little group and bent before me with an apologetic expression of face. I hastily consulted the carte du jour, and gave my order.

The lunch was quickly served, and proved to be excellent. The sweetbreads, omelette soufflé, and some Pontet Canet of 1872, were particularly interesting. But I did not forget to look over my shoulder occasionally to see how the Englishman and his companion were getting on. They soon finished their repast; the bill, which might have been a washer-woman’s for length, was delivered and paid without verification. He only looked at the total, and produced from a great roll of French bank-notes one which he placed upon the salver extended to him. Then he opened a rouleau of gold, and gave a bright-yellow piece to each of the two waiters who stood near him. As the salver was borne past me to the caisse, I noticed that the bill was of the denomination of 100 francs. The Englishman did not stop for his change (if any), but hurried off with his stylish enslaver; so I inferred that 100 francs was not far from the price of their lunch. Remarking this extraordinary lavishness, I said to myself, “That man has been winning a pot of money over at the Casino.”

Now it happened that he had placed his new Derby hat in the embrasure of the window, just behind my chair. As one of the waiters reached over for it, I inadvertently glanced into the hat, and there chanced to see the illegible name of somebody, “maker, Cockspur St., London.” So this extravagant Englishman became “Cockspur” to me henceforth and forever. We shall soon see more of him.

From our luncheon at the Restaurant de Paris we went direct to the Casino, and there, while I was hunting up my card for the inspection of the chief inquisitor, I observed an innocent-looking youth standing near me. He wore the dog-collar, the pointed shoes, the tight-fitting, single-breasted coat of the London swell, and he gripped his little silver-headed cane in the middle, like a shillalah. But I know my dear fellow-countrymen under all their disguises. A single glance at his face convinced me that he was a good young American on his first trip. His dissipation was obviously confined to clothes. He had just handed in his card, and an official personage was making an entry of the name in a book.

“Quel pays, monsieur?” he asked, courteously.

The good young man turned to me and said, with surprise: “Is there anything to pay here? I thought it was a free show.”

“There is no charge. He only wants to know where you are from, as we would say in America,” I answered.

His ingenuous cheeks colored. “I can speak French a little myself,” said he; “but somehow I don’t catch it when they speak it at me.”

I assured him kindly that we all had the same trouble, more or less.

“Quel pays, monsieur?” repeated the ever-amiable greffier of the administration.

“Beg pardon,” said the good young man, flushing again. “I’m from North Adams, Massachusetts.”

“Nort-a-darm—Massa-Massa—n’importe—Angleterre,” murmured the greffier, and down it went.

The benighted Frenchman had supposed the name of the glorious old commonwealth to be that of some obscure shire in England. It is the most flagrant piece of geographical distortion on record.

The good young man was so flustered by all this that he did not wait to exchange cards with me, but hurried off to the gambling-hall. So I was compelled to label him in my mind “North Adams.” He was number three among the strangers in whose actions that day I took a deep interest. Without their presence, indeed, the game of roulette would have been tiresome to me as a mere spectator.

If Oldpaint had not been one of the large company of gamblers in that magnificent apartment, I should have been much disappointed; for I felt a profound curiosity to see how her withered features would stand the wear and tear of the game. There she was, as if by agreement, and I at once stationed myself behind her chair. Her seat was well chosen for a general survey of the table. She was just opposite the wheel, and the croupier who set it whirling at intervals was her nearest neighbor.

Oldpaint still wore her veil closely drawn over her face. But I could see the varying expression of her features through the gauze, as I looked down at her while she played. At one time her dull eyes would light up with a gleam of avaricious joy. Again they would become fishy. The pinched mouth would contract slightly at the corners, bringing out new wrinkles on her rouged cheeks, or her thin, vermilion-tinted lips would curve downward, just as she happened to win or lose—more commonly the latter. Her gloved hands, which terminated in skeleton wrists, trembled equally as she put up her stakes or piled her occasional winnings in little round towers before her.

By her side stood a small open bag, through the steel jaws of which I saw silver five-franc pieces and little rolls of gold, like packages of lozenges, with one coin visible at the end as a sample. Below was a thin foundation of French bank-notes. Oldpaint was one of those who play on a system. She had before her a large pasteboard card divided into many squares, and a pencil with a sharp point. Whenever the wheel slowed up so as to permit the ivory ball to drop into a compartment and decide the game, she threw a lightning glance at the winning number and color, and pricked certain entries on her card. By the time the human parrot at her side called out, “Faites vos jeux,” she was ready with a fresh stake, generally a small one. In no instance did she go over ten francs.

As for Oldpaint’s system, it was too complicated for me to understand. But the results were plain enough: rouge was generally turning up when she had bet on noir. Her money, as a rule, stood on pair, when it should have been on impair. When other players were doubling their stakes on passe, Oldpaint was almost sure to have five francs on manque. Occasionally she would haul in something substantial. Once she bagged eight times the amount of her stake. It had been put at the intersecting lines of four numbers, one of which had won. As the croupier scooped them in for her with his little rake, I could see the enamel on her cheeks crack open in new places, she smiled so broadly; and then, on the strength of this bit of luck, the poor old woman would go on losing again. It made me sick to see her throwing away good money on a system which ought to have been turned round end for end. A gambler, if he had been in my place, would have made a good thing just watching Oldpaint and playing against her every time.

My attention was now called off by the sudden appearance of Cockspur on the scene. As there was no spare seat for him at the table, he stood up in the second row of players and spectators. His face was flushed, and he reached forward between two other persons to rest his hand on the back of a chair, as if to steady himself. I wondered if the man would be foolish enough to play in that half-drunken state. It was a great pity that such a free-hearted fellow should be a victim of the dreadful vice of gambling, and perhaps be reduced to beggary by his rashness before night.

Cockspur took a napoleon from a side-pocket which audibly jingled with coins. Waiting till the wheel started, he pitched the gold-piece carelessly on the table. It rolled on its edge, making a circle on the cloth and finally laid down at the junction of two lines which intersect six numbers. “Rien ne va plus,” droned the human parrot, when the speed of the wheel was much reduced, and a moment later the ball dropped with a little thud. “Vingt-cinq rouge,” said the same monotonous voice. I looked at the square on the table, and lo! it was one of the six numbers covered by Cockspur’s napoleon. He had won five times the amount of his stake. One of the servitors whose duty it is to assist in placing money on the table or handing over winnings, passed the six napoleons up to Cockspur, who slipped them into the yawning side-pocket. His face expressed no pleasure. Some men, under the belief that they had struck a run of luck, would, in Cockspur’s place, have risked a sum larger than twenty francs on the next round. In his condition I expected him to do something rash. But he only produced another napoleon from his store and let it fall. After wobbling about a moment it came to rest on the division marked manque. Again a whirl of the wheel and a fall of the ball, and the croupier proclaimed “Quinze noir,” and Cockspur doubled his stake, because 15 is manque, or less than 18. All numbers over 18 up to 36 are passe; and all the players who had put their money on the part of the table so labeled, were losers to the bank.

The same good fortune pursued Cockspur as he pitched his gold pieces at random into the section Rouge or Noir, Pair or Impair. He won six or seven times running while I looked on. And then he and all the players together fell prey to the bank’s single advantage. Besides the thirty-six numbers, there is a zero (0), and, when that catches the ball, all the stakes on the board are raked in by the bank, with the solitary exception that any person who has staked on the zero (thereby backing the bank) gains thirty-five times the amount of his wager. But, in the case under notice, the zero symbol was uncovered. As the bank plays nine or ten hours every day in the year, and must, according to the law of probabilities, win once in every thirty-seven games (requiring about a minute each) on the average, one can understand how the administration makes all its money without the necessity of cheating. No player is allowed to stake more than six thousand francs at a time, and the enormous capital of the bank enables it to continue the game against any conceivably probable run of bad luck.

Cockspur continued to drop his money, always the one prudent napoleon, on the table, and letting it take the chances. Sometimes he lost, but more often he won. It would have been amusing, but for the sadness of their long and hungry faces, to see Oldpaint and some others who were losing steadily on systems, look up at Cockspur who was discarding all methods and trusting blindly to luck, and showing so much judgment even in his folly, taking only small risks at a time. As I gazed across the table at him, I foresaw with prophetic eye the time, and not far off, when his luck would turn, and he would then become frenzied and reckless; perhaps put up his last napoleon, and lose it, and then the siren with the frizzled hair would drop her penniless lover, and the comedy of real life would tragically close with a pistol-shot and a newspaper paragraph.

I was dwelling on this dismal ending of the handsome fellow opposite, when a new cause of anxiety threw him quite out of my mind.

There was North Adams, fluttering around the table like a moth about a candle. He had been spending his time watching the other groups of players, I suppose, and had now come to see what our set was doing. Like most persons who look on at the game for the first time, he watched only those who won. The equal numbers who lost at every fall of the ball seemed to escape his observation. Every time a player raked in a goodly pile, North Adams’s eyes would bulge out with astonishment. He would thrust his hand into a pocket and partly draw it out, and then thrust it back again. A storm of conflicting feelings swept over his smooth, beardless face. One could easily read avarice, covetousness, the love of illicit gain, struggling with the generous sentiments of youth and the good principles of New England training. I tried to catch his eye, but in vain. He was totally absorbed in the contemplation of all that money so easily won. Once he elbowed his way through the double row of outsiders, and I thought he was about to place money on the table. But just then the bank again scored zero (0), and all those yellow and white pieces down there disappeared in an instant! This was a warning for North Adams. He drew back, and I saw a look as of shrewd reflection pass across his face. He wiped his damp brow, and resolutely buttoned up the pocket into which his hand had so often dived without bringing up anything.

That one decisive hit for the bank seemed to banish the doubts that had evidently troubled North Adams. He did not look like a person of severe moral principles; he may have had no nice scruples upon the subject of gaming; but when his mind, such as it was, still bearing the impress of his early schooling and severe discipline, realized that the bank had a “sure thing” in the long run, then he hesitated to jump at the gilded bait. Some grains of hard common sense inherited from level-headed ancestors, along with the high cheek-bones of his Scotch face, came to his rescue in the nick of time. Blood will tell, even when thinned down in the veins of a harmless dude; and while I looked at him, still questioning his firmness against temptation, he deliberately turned his back upon the game and walked straight out of the room.

I soon followed him into the open air, better pleased with that spectacle of conflict and victory than with all else I had seen in the gambling-palace of Monte Carlo.