witnessed. Faust and Mephistopheles were the names that we, old habitués of the place, baptised them with; and to what names they answered in real life, or what position they occupied, we were never able to ascertain. Faust was a man of immense bulk and size, and looked something like a cross between a Manchester betting-man and a Belgian brewer. His linen was of the dirtiest, and his huge hands were even dirtier than the fragment of shirt displayed about his bull-neck. His great gold chain and the diamond rings on his fat fingers bespoke a wealth strangely at variance with the slovenliness of his dress. Moreover, there could be no question about the fact of his wealth, though there might be about its origin. He carried with him on all occasions an immense greasy pocket-book, fastened with an india-rubber band, and literally bursting with bank-notes. He was said to have brought five hundred thousand francs with him; and from what I saw him lose, I have little doubt he might well have had half that amount. Mephistopheles, on the other hand, could have been bought up bodily, to say nothing of his soul, for half-a-guinea: he was a little old Jew, who might have been any age between fifty and a hundred. His threadbare clothes stuck so close to him that you felt convinced if he ever took them off, which he had obviously not done for weeks, he would never get them on again. His nose was the most hooked and his eyes the sharpest that I ever saw in any of his race; his hands, too, were the very pattern of a vulture’s talons. Apparently, his sole possessions in the world were a long tattered note-book, filled with elaborate calculations of chances, and the confidence of Faust. In fact, in the unholy partnership entered into between the two, Faust supplied the capital, and Mephistopheles the intellect. The plan on which the firm intended to operate may be understood even by persons unacquainted with any game of hazard.
There are an equal amount of odd and even numbers on a roulette-board, and therefore, in the long run, the odd or even numbers turn up one as often as the other. Now, supposing you put a sovereign on the odd numbers and lose it, you would then, according to the Mephistophelian system, stake next time two sovereigns on the same numbers. If you lose them you stake four, and so go on doubling till an odd number turns up. Whenever this event happens, the difference between the stake you win and the amount of the various sums you have lost is exactly your original stake; and therefore, as the odds must turn up some time or other, the termination of any series of even numbers must always leave you a winner. The system is infallible but for two fatal defects. The first is that, besides the eighteen odd numbers on the table, there is a zero; and whenever the ball falls into the hole corresponding to the zero (which of course it does, on an average, once in thirty-six times), the bank wins all the stakes, whether placed upon the odd or even numbers. This difficulty, however, is less serious than the second. If you go on doubling, the amount of your stake increases with a rapidity that is perfectly awful. Starting with a stake of five shillings, in ten rounds the amount you would have to put down would be 128l. If you won it you would gain five shillings on the balance. If your courage gave way before the prospect of staking 256l., you would lose 255l. 15s. on the series. To carry on this system, therefore, with absolute certainty of success, even laying aside all consideration of the zero, you ought to have the purse of Fortunatus. Practically, however, a run of more than eighteen consecutive odd or even numbers is I believe extraordinary, and a run of more than eight is unusually rare. To guard themselves, therefore, against the success of this system in the hands of very wealthy players, the bank has forbidden more than 400l. to be staked on any one single chance.
It was by playing this doubling game that the firm of Mephistopheles, Faust, and Company, hoped to make their fortunes. Every morning, as soon as the tables opened, they seated themselves side by side at the board.—Mephistopheles with his note-book before him, and the stump of a pencil in his lips; Faust with his pocket-book of bank-notes sticking out of his breast-pocket. The senior partner never played himself, but whispered his instructions to his colleague. Their rule was to stake a hundred-franc note, say upon the red, and to go on doubling till they won. To guard against the zero turning up, they placed a florin on this particular number, which they also doubled each time they lost. On the first day, as far as I could gather, they won a thousand francs or so. On the second evening, however, the fatal defect of their system made itself visible. They were playing on the odd chance, and there was a run of enormous length on the even. Thirteen times in succession the croupier called out, “Pair!” By the time the seventh number of the series was reached, the players had reached the maximum. Six times they played the maximum. and lost; and when at last the run turned, they had lost close upon 3000l. in the space of thirty minutes. However, there was plenty of money still left amongst their assets; and the next day fortune favoured them. At the close of the evening they had won 1200l. Mephistopheles, to do him justice, was a fine player; winning or losing, he never showed the slightest emotion, possibly because the money embarked in the speculation was not his own. Faust, on the other hand, was easily intoxicated with success, on this occasion he jumped up at the close of the evening’s play; shook his bank-notes in the face of the croupier, and informed him he would never leave till he had taken every franc out of the bank. Anything more calmly contemptuous than the bow with which this remark was received it is impossible to conceive.
The following two days the play went on with little interest, at any rate as far as lookers-on were concerned. Sunday was destined to be the day of the final triumph of the bank. In the morning I entered his room, and found Faust losing heavily and continuously. He had grown weary of the infallible martingale, and was staking large sums constantly on the odd or even, and always with ill-luck. I went away for a long walk into that pleasant Nassau country, and came back quite late in the evening. The tables were deserted, with the exception of the one at which Faust was ruining himself, where a dense crowd was gathered.