The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

"At what hour are the tables opened?" asked I, as if for information.

"At noon, Monsieur le Comte," said one of the croupiers, folding up his paper, and producing the keys of the strongbox; "but, except these worthy people," – this he said with a most contemptuous air of compassion, – "we have no players till four, or even five, of the afternoon."

"Come, then," said I, taking a seat, "I 'll set the virtuous fashion of early hours. There go twenty Naps, for a beginning."

The dealer shuffled the cards. I cut them, and we began. We I say; because I was the only player, the little knot of humble folk gathering around me in mute astonishment, and wondering what millionnaire they had before them. If I had not been too deeply engaged in the interest of the game, I should have experienced the very highest degree of entertainment from the remarks and comments of the bystanders, who all sympathized with me, and made common cause against the bank.

Some of them were peasants, some were small shopkeepers from distant towns, – the police regulations exclude all natives of Baden, it being the Grand-Ducal policy only to pillage the foreigner, – and one, a half-starved, decrepit old fellow, had been a professor of something somewhere, and turned out of his university to starve for having broached some liberal doctrines in a lecture. He it was who watched me with most eager intensity, following every alternation of my game with a card and a pin. At the end of about an hour I was winner of something more than two hundred pounds, and I sat betting on, my habitual stake of five, or sometimes ten "Naps." each time.

"Get up and go away now," whispered the old man in my ear. "You have done enough for once, – gained more in this brief hour than ever I did in any two years of hard labor."

"At what trade did you work?" asked I, without raising my head from my game.

"My faculty was the 'Pandects,'" replied he, gravely; "but I lectured in private on history, philology, and chemistry."

Shocked at the rudeness of my question to one in his station, I muttered some half-intelligible excuse; but he did not seem to suspect any occasion for apology, – never recognizing that he who labored with head could arrogate over him who toiled with his hands.

"There, I told you so," broke he in, suddenly. "You will lose all back again. You play rashly. The runs of the game have been 'triplets' and you bet on to the fourth time of passing."

"So, then, you understand it!" said I, smiling, and still making my stake as before.

"Let the deal pass; don't bet now," whispered he, eagerly.

"Herr Ephraim, I have warned you already," cried the croupier, "that if you persist in disturbing the gentlemen who play here, you will be removed by the police."

The word "police" – so dreadful to all German ears – made the old man tremble from bead to foot; and he bowed twice or thrice in hurried submission, and protested that he would be more cautious in future.

"You certainly do not exhibit such signs of good fortune on your own person," said the croupier, "that should entitle you to advise and counsel others."

"Quite true, Herr Croupier," assented he, with an attempt to smile.

"Besides that, if you reckon upon the Count's good nature to give you a trifle when the game is over, you 'll certainly merit it better by silence and respect now."

The old man's face became deep scarlet, and then as suddenly pale. He made an effort to say something; but though his hands gesticulated, and his lips moved, no sounds were audible, and with a faint sigh he tottered back and leaned against the wall. I sprang up and placed him in a chair, and, seeing that he was overcome by weakness, I called for wine, and hastily poured a glassful down his throat. I could not induce him to take a second, and he seemed, while expressing his gratitude, to be impatient to get away and leave the place.

"Shall I see you home, Herr Ephraim?" said I; "will you allow me to accompany you?"

"On no account, Herr Graf," said he, giving me the title he had heard the croupier address me by. "I can go alone; I am quite able, and – I prefer it."

"But you are too weak, far too weak to venture by yourself, – is he not so?" said I, turning to the croupier to corroborate my words. A strangely significant raising of the eyebrow, a sort of – I know not what – meaning, was all the reply he made me; and half ashamed of the possibility of being made the dupe of some practised impostor, I drew nigh the table for an explanation.

"What is it? what do you mean?" asked I, eagerly.

A shrug of the shoulders and a look of pity was his answer.

"Is he a hypocrite? – is he a cheat?" asked I.

"Perhaps not exactly that," said he, shuffling the cards.

"A drunkard, – does he drink, then?" asked I.

"I have never heard so," said he.

"Then what has he done? – what is he?" cried I, impatiently.

He made a sign for me to come close, and then whispered in my ear what I have just told you, only with a voice full of holy horror at the crime of a man who had dared to have an opinion not in accordance with that of a Police Prefect! That he – a man of hard study and deep reading – should venture to draw other lessons from history than those taught at drum-heads by corporals and petty officers!

"Is that all? – is that all?" asked I, indignantly.

"All all!" exclaimed he; "do you want more?"

"Why, these things may possibly interest police spies, but they have no imaginable concern for me."

"That is precisely what they have, sir," said he, hastily, and in a still more cautious tone. "You could not show that miserable man a kindness without its attracting the attention of the authorities. They never could be brought to believe mere humanity was the motive, and they would seek for some explanation more akin to their daily habits. As an Englishman, I know your custom is to treat these things haughtily, and make every personal insult of this kind a national question; but the inconvenience of this course will track you over the whole Continent. Your passport will be demanded here, permission refused you to remain there. At one town your luggage will be scrutinized, at another, your letters opened. I conclude you come abroad to enjoy yourself. Is this the way to do it? At all events, he is gone now," added he, looking down the room, "and let's think no more of him. Messieurs, faîtes votre jeu!" and once more rang out the burden of that monotonous injunction to ruin and beggary!

I was n't exactly in the mood for high play at the moment; on the contrary, my thoughts were with poor Ephraim and his sorrows; but, for very pride's sake, I was obliged to seem indifferent and at ease. For I must tell you, Bob, this cold, impassive bearing is the high breeding of the play-table, and to transgress it, even for an instant, is a gross breach of good manners. I have told you my mind was preoccupied; the results were soon manifest in my play. Every "coup" was ill-timed. I was always on the wrong color, and lost without intermission.

"This is not your 'beau moment,' Monsieur le Comte," said the croupier to me, as he raked in a stake I had suffered to quadruple itself by remaining. "I should almost say, wait for another time!"

"Had you said so half an hour ago," replied I, bitterly, "the counsel might have been worth heeding. There goes the last of twenty thousand francs." And there it did go, Bob! swept in by the same remorseless hand that gathered all I possessed.

I lingered for a few moments, half stunned. I felt like one that requires some seconds to recover from the effects of a severe blow, but who feels conscious that with time he shall rally and be himself again. After that I strolled out into the open air, lighted my cigar, and turned off into a steep path that led up the mountain side, under the cover of a dense pine forest. I walked for hours, without noticing the way at either side of me, and it was only when, overcome with thirst, I stooped to drink at a little fountain, that I perceived I had crossed over the crest of the mountain, and gained a little glen at its foot, watered by what I guessed must be a capital fishing-stream. Indeed, I had not long to speculate on this point, for, a few hundred yards off, I beheld a man standing knee-deep in the water, over which he threw his line, with that easy motion of the wrist that bespeaks the angler.

I must tell you that the sight of a fly-fisher is so far interesting abroad that it is only practised by the English; and although, Heaven knows, there is no scarcity of them in town and cities, the moment you wander in the least out of the beaten, frequented track of travel, you rejoice to see your countryman. I made towards him, therefore, at once, to ask what sport he had, and came up just as he had landed a good-sized fish.

"I see, sir," said I, "that the fish are not so strong as in our waters. You 'd have given that fellow twenty minutes more play, had he been in a Highland tarn."

"Or in that brisk little river at Dodsborough," replied he, laughing; and, turning round at the same time to sainte me, I perceived that it was Captain Morris. You may remember him being quartered at Bruff, about two years ago, and having had some altercation with my governor on some magisterial topics. He was never much to my taste. I thought him somewhat of a military prig, very stiff and stand off; but whether it was the shooting-jacket vice the red coat, or change of place and scene, I know not, but now he seemed far more companionable than I could have thought him. He was a capital angler too, and spoke of shooting and deer-stalking like one passionately fond of them. I felt half ashamed at first, when he asked me my opinion of the trout streams in the neighborhood, and it was only as we warmed up that I owned to the kind of life I had been leading at Baden, and the consequences it had entailed.

"Fortunately for me, in one sense," said he, laughing, "I have always been too poor a man to play at anything; and chess, which excludes all idea of money, is the only game I know. But of this I am quite sure, that the worst of gambling is neither the time nor the money lost upon it; it is the simple fact that, if you ever win, from that moment forth you are unfitted to the pursuits by which men earn their livelihood. The slow, careworn paths of daily industry become insufferable to him who can compass a year's labor by the turn of a die. Enrich yourself but once – only once – at the play-table, and try then what it is to follow any career of patient toil."

He had seen, he said, many examples of this in his own regiment; some of the very finest fellows had been ruined by play, for, as he remarked, "it is strange enough, there are few vices so debasing, and yet the natures and temperaments most open to the seduction of the gaming-table are very far from being those originally degraded." I suppose that his tone of conversation chimed in well with my thoughts at the moment, for I listened to all he said with deep interest, and willingly accepted his invitation to eat some of his morning's sport at a little cottage, where he lived, hard by. He had taken it for the season, and was staying there with his mother, a charming old lady, who welcomed me with great cordiality.

I dined and passed the evening with them. I don't remember when I spent one so much to my satisfaction, for there was something more than courtesy, something beyond mere politeness, in their manner towards me; and I could observe in any chance allusion to the girls, there was a degree of real interest that almost savored of friendship. There was but one point on which I did not thoroughly go with Morris, and that was about Tiverton. On that I found him full of the commonest and most vulgar prejudices. He owned that there was no acquaintanceship between them, and therefore I was able to attribute much, if not all, of his impressions to erroneous information. Now I know George intimately, – nobody can know him better. He is what they call in the world "a loose fish." He's not overburdened with strict notions or rigid principles; he 'd tell you himself, that to be encumbered with either would be like entering for a rowing-match in a strait waistcoat; but he is a fellow to share his last shilling with a friend, – thoroughly generous and free-hearted. These are qualities, however, that men like Morris hold cheap. They seem to argue that nobody stands in need of such attributes. I differ with them there totally. My notion is that shipwreck is so common a thing in life, it is always pleasant to think that a friend can throw you a spare hencoop when you're sinking.

We chatted till the night closed in, and then, as the moon got up, Morris strolled with me to within a mile of Baden.

"There!" said he, pointing to the little village, now all spangled with its starry lights, – "there lies the fatal spot that has blighted many a hope, and made many a heart a ruin! I wish you were miles away from it!"

"It cannot injure me much now," said I, laughing; "I am as regularly 'cleaned out' as a poor old professor I met there this morning, Herr Ephraim."

"Not Ephraim Gauss?" asked he. "Did you meet him?"

"If that be his name, – a small, mean-looking man, with a white beard – "

"One of the first men in Germany – the greatest civilian – the most learned Orientalist – and a man of almost universal attainment in science – tell me of him."

I told him the little incident I have already related to you, and mentioned the caution given me by the croupier.