"Will you play picquet for one sou the game, one hundred and fifty
points?" says a soldier near by.
He accepts at once; the afternoon passes to night, and the lamps in the
roof are lighted. The cards flicker upon the seat; the boors gather
round to watch; they pass the French frontier, and see from their
windows the forges of Belgium, throwing fire upon the river Meuse.
Still, hour after hour, though their eyes are weary, and all the folks
are gone or sleeping, the cards fall, fall, fall, till there comes a jar
and a stop, and the guard cries, "Cologne!"
"You have won," says the soldier, laying down his money. "Good-night."
The Rhine is a fine stream, though our German friends will build
mock-castles upon it, and insist that it is the only real river in the
world.
Auburn Risque pays no more regard to it than though he were treading the
cedars and sands of New Jersey or North Carolina. He speaks with a
Franco-Russian, who has lost in play ten thousand francs a month for
three successive years, and while they discuss chances, expedients and
experiences, the Siebern-gebierge drifts by, they pass St. Goar and
Bingen, and the wonderful Rhine has been only a time, nothing of a
scene, as they stop abreast Biberich, and, rowed ashore in a flagboat,
make at once for the railway.
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