"To-morrow?" he said, in a voice hard, passionless, inflectionless; "how
could one break the bank to-morrow, when all his money was gone
yesterday?"
"Gone!" repeated the Colony, in a breath rather than a voice, and
reeling as if a galvanic current had passed through the circle--"Gone!"
"Every sou," said Risque, sinking into a chair. "The bank gave me one
hundred francs to return to Paris; I risked twenty-five of it, hopeful
of better luck, and lost again. Then I had not enough money to get home,
and for forty kilometres of the way I have driven a _charette_. See!" he
cried, throwing open his coat; "I sold my vest at Compiegne last night,
for a morsel of supper."
"But you had won seven thousand one hundred francs!"
"I won more--more than eighteen thousand francs; but, enlarging my
stakes with my capital, one hour brought me down to a sou."
"The 'system' was a swindle," hissed Mr. Simp, looking up through red
eyes which throbbed like pulses. "What right had you to plunder us upon
your speculation?"
"The 'system' could not fail," answered the gamester, at bay; "it must
have been my manner of play. I think that, upon one run of luck, I gave
up my method."
"We do not know," cried Simp, tossing his hands wildly; "we may not
accuse, we may not be enraged--we are nothing now but profligates
without means, and beggars without hope!"
They sobbed together, bitterly and brokenly, till Freckle, not entirely
sober, shouted, "Good God, is it that gammon-head, Hugenot, who has
ruined us? Fetch him out from his ancestry; let me see him, I say! Where
is the man who took my three hundred francs!"
"I wish," said Simp, in a suicidal way, "that I were lying by Lees in
the _fosse commune_.
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