The tempter, moreover,
offered to initiate his listener in his infallible method of
getting rich. In his frame of mind Olivier yielded to the
temptation, with the full determination, if not to get money by
cheating at cards, at any rate to learn the method which might
serve as a means of self-defence should he not think proper to
use it for attack--such was the final argument suggested by the
human Mephistopheles to his pupil.
Taking Olivier to his house, he showed him a pack of cards. 'Now
here is a pack of cards,' he said; 'there seems to be nothing
remarkable about it, does there?' Olivier examined the pack and
declared that the cards did not appear to differ in the least
from all others. 'Well,' said Chauvignac, 'nevertheless they
have been subjected to a preparation called biseautage, or having
one end of the cards made narrower than the other. This
disposition enables us to remove from the pack such and such
cards and then to class them in the necessary order so that they
may get into the hand of the operator.' Chauvignac then
proceeded to apply his precepts by an example, and although the
young man had no particular qualification for the art of
legerdemain, he succeeded at once to admiration in a game at
Ecarte, for he had already mastered the first process of
cheating.
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