The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-08-01

women-middle aged-both sexes
young men and girls; some of whom
are only lockers on. You hear a
constant clink, clink, clink OF silver
and gold, and a rustic of bank-notes.
The wheel is always in motion, turn
ing at a moderate speed. The ball is
set rolling; it glides round the con-
cave, dropping nearer and nearer to
the centre; but before it reaches the
cell at the bottom there has been laid
at every square of the green cloth a
piece of money-a guilder, a dollar, a
Napoleon, or a thousand francs per-
haps. sw
THE PLAYERS.
At the first table is a gray-haired
man with a white mustache and
smoothly shaved cheeks. He has a
forid c~ountenance. He must be at
least sixty years old, for Time is null
typlying and deepening the burrows.
He is not a desperate gamester-per-
haps plays for the fun of it. He
stakes but a dollar at a time-loses
gains, loses, and after a while leaves
the table. A young man with a tuft
of hair on his chin and thin side whis-
kers, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes,
wearing a threadbare coat and dirty
linen, takes a vacant seat, pulls a lean
portmonie from his pocket, lays a
dollar on the green cloth, and watches
with intense eagerness the rolling
ball. He is poor and this is the way
he has taken to increase his fortune.
Luck is on his side. He is a dollar
richer. He clutches the shining sill
yer, turns it over; gloats upon it with
miserly satisfaction; he lays another.
=" Nineteen" says the man at the
wheel, and the dollar is scooped away.
The next time he will win again. He
is mistaken; the bank takes it. He
tries once more; sees q second dollar
disappear; then quits h seat, crest
fallen, looking longingly at the grow
ing heap of gold and silver beneath
the hands Of the raker.
At the other side of the table sits a
lady in the bloom of early woman
hood, Of a fair countenance, and
large, lustrous. eyes. She was here
yesterday evening with a pile of gold
before her. and was playing twenty
francs at a time. She wears a jockey
hat with a superb ostrich plume, and
her rich silk lilac colored robe lies at
her feet in wavy rolls. When she
walks it is with the air of a queen.
and she sits there seemingly indiffer-
ent whether twenty franc pieces are
won or lost, and yet when four sue
cessive stakes have been swept away
a slight flush overspreads her face;
she bites her under lip; smooths the
mo WV hoir rnoo bar foroho0I on1
with an air of bravado lays another
piece and wins. A little later every
one of the shining pieces of metal
have disappeared; all gone into the
bank.
Standing behindt this lady is a young
man, dressed with taste and elegance,
who has a we'll trimmed beard,
smoothly brushed hair, who plays but
a dollar at a time. but he lays it down
an air of one who expects to
win. He goes from the table richer
than he came. At the end of the
is a fellow with a hard, cold
face-an eye of the color of steel,
who looks not TO the right or the left,
but only upon the table. He lays
down a thousand francs in gold. 1t
is raked into the bank, and not a
muscle of his countenance moves.
He lays a second thousand, and sees
it drawn away with as much uncon-
Germ as if it were but a half-dime.
II is not a great amount. but the
is all the while turning, and
there are not many men who can
afford to lose two hundred dollars
every minute.
A tall man-brOad shouldered with
bald crown, thin locks of hair about
his ears, great shaggy eyebrows,
features, wearing a dark suit,
with a heavy gold chain to his watch,
lays a half a dozen napoleons-scat-
tering them all over the table, to d.
vide his risks. He loses, then wins
loses and wins again. Some are in
watching the playing-marking
the number to see ifthere is any lucky
Among them is a woman
wearing a black bonnet and faded
black silk dress. She has a long row
of figures, and is engaged in a mathe-
matical calculation to find out the ra-
ito between gains and losses. Look
at her face narrowly!-it is as cold
and passionless as that of yonder
marble statue in the park. She could
see a man step upon the fatal drop
and swing into eternity, without rails
ing her fan to shut out even for a Sec
ond, the horrid sight. No scene of
suffering can change for an instant,
the rigidity of that corrugated c0un-
tenance-as hard as the hardest steel!
She has finished her calculations,
her paper slowly, puts up her
pencil deliberately, watches the table,
lays a double guilder on number
sees it swept away, lays
LAYS another-another, a fourth; all
are zone hnt the fifth wins-the sixth