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Hermann walked up to the table; the punters immediately made room for him. Chekalinsky greeted him with a gracious bow. Hermann waited for the next deal, took a card and placed upon it his forty-seven thousand roubles, together with his winnings of the previous evening. Chekalinsky began to deal. A knave turned up on the right, a seven on the left. Hermann showed his seven.
The punters of Richmond, Hampton Court, and Chertsey, with their magnificent tackle, gentles, ground-bait, and comfortable chair, &c., would be astonished to see the quantities of fish that are taken in one of these Gours by a half-naked peasant, with a line as thick as packthread, during a sultry tempestuous evening in the month of June; from thirty to forty pounds' weight of carp and eels is by no means an unusual take, Apodal and Abdominal, as the learned Gmelin would say.
The repast was a magnificent one, but when Medini sat down at the end of a long table behind a heap of gold and a pack of cards, no punters came forward. Madame Goudar tried in vain to make the gentlemen take a hand. The Englishmen and the Saxons said politely that they should be delighted to play if she or I would take the bank, but they feared the count's extraordinary fortune.
Madame fainted away, the punters hurried out, and I followed their example, as soon as I had secured one-half of the gold which was on the table. I was glad enough it was not worse. As I left, Croce told me that we would meet again in Venice, for he had been ordered to quit Padua within twenty-four hours.
It was just three o'clock. I begged Desarmoises to be my croupier, and I began to deal with due deliberation to eighteen or twenty punters, all professional gamblers. I took a new pack at every deal. By five o'clock I had lost money. We heard carriage wheels, and they said it was three Englishmen from Geneva, who were changing horses to go on to Chamberi. A moment after they came in, and I bowed.
"I went last night to White's, and stayed there till two. The Pharo party was amusing. Five such beggars could not have met; four lean crows feeding on a dead horse. Poor Parsons held the bank. The punters were Lord Carmarthen, Lord Essex, and one of the Fauquiers; and Denbigh sat at the table, with what hopes I know not, for he did not punt.
They all laughed again at that, and waved us a pretty farewell as the punters set them over toward the other shore, and left us standing on the bank beside our boat. "Let us go and see them," said Clara; "that is, if you are not in a hurry to get to Streatley, Walter?" "O no," said Walter, "I shall be glad of the excuse to have a little more of your company."
Here our leading punter was a cheery, friendly miller like the host of the hotel at St. Enimie, a municipal councillor. No better specimen of the French peasant gradually developing into the gentleman could be found. The freedom from coarseness or vulgarity in these amateur punters of the Tarn is indeed quite remarkable.
In the evening, we had the same bank at faro, with the same result as the first time, except a violent blow from the stick of one of the punters upon the back of the banker, of which the Greek stoically feigned to take no notice. I saw the same man again nine years afterwards in Vienna, captain in the service of Maria Theresa; he then called himself d'Afflisso.
At the same time Madame de Rochemaure seemed pensive. The Revolution, which had for a long while been pleasant and profitable to her, was now a source of anxiety and disquietude; her suppers were growing less brilliant and less merry. The notes of her harp no longer charmed the cloud from sombre faces. Her play-tables were forsaken by the most lavish punters.
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