第19章

"Fault of the place, eh? You taught _them_ something, though; and the present conversation reminds me of it. In your second term, when every other man is still quizzed and kept down as a freshman, you, were already a leader; a chief of misrule. You founded a whist-club in Trinity, the primmest college of all. The Dons rooted you out in college; but you did not succumb; you fulfilled the saying of Sydney Smith, that 'Cribbage should be played in caverns, and sixpenny-whist in the howling wilderness.' Ha! ha! how well I remember riding across Bullington Green one fine afternoon, and finding four Oxford hacks haltered in a row, and the four undergraduates that had hired them on long tick, sitting cross-legged under the hedge like Turks or tailors, round a rude table with the legs sawed down to stumps. You had two packs, and a portable inkstand, and were so hard at it that I put my mare's nose right over the quartet before you saw either her or me. That hedge was like a drift of odoriferous snow the hawthorn bloom, and primroses sparkled on its bank like topazes. The birds chirruped, the sky smiled, the sun burned perfumes; and there sat my lord and his fellow-maniacs, snick-snack--pit-pat--cutting, dealing, playing, revoking, scoring, and exchanging I. O. U. 's not worth the paper.""All true, but the revoking," said Severne, merrily. "Monster! by the memory of those youthful days, I demand a fair hearing." Then, gravely, "Hang it all, Vizard, I am not a fellow that is always intruding his affairs and his theories upon other men.""No, no, no," said Vizard, hastily, and half apologetically; "go on.""Well, then, of course I don't pretend to foreknowledge; but I do to experience, and you know experience teaches the wise.""Not to fling five hundred after three. There--I beg pardon. Proceed, instructor of youth.""Do listen, then: experience teaches us that luck has its laws; and Ibuild my system on one of them. If two opposite accidents are sure to happen equally often in a total of fifty times, people, who have not observed, expect them to happen turn about, and bet accordingly. But they don't happen turn about; they make short runs, and sometimes long ones.

They positively avoid alternation. Have you not observed this at _trente et quarante?"_"No."

"Then you have not watched the cards."

"Not much. The faces of the gamblers were always my study. They are instructive.""Well, then, I'll give you an example outside--for the principle runs through all equal chances--take the university boat-race: you have kept your eye on that?""Rather. Never missed one yet. Come all the way from Barfordshire to see it.""Well, there's an example."

"Of chance? No, thank you. That goes by strength, skill, wind, endurance, chaste living, self-denial, and judicious training. Every winning boat is manned by virtues." His eye flashed, and he was as earnest all in a moment as he had been listless. A continental cynic had dubbed this insular cynic mad.

The professor of chances smiled superior. "Those things decide each individual race, and the best men win, because it happens to be the only race that is never sold. But go further back, and you find it is chance.

It is pure chance that sends the best men up to Cambridge two or three years running, and then to Oxford. With this key, take the facts my system rests on. There are two. The first is that in thirty and odd races and matches, the university luck has come out equal on the river and at Lord's: the second is, the luck has seldom alternated. I don't say, never. But look at the list of events; it is published every March. You may see there the great truth that even chances shun direct alternation.

In this, properly worked, lies a fortune at Homburg, where the play is square. Red gains once; you back red next time, and stop. You are on black, and win; you double. This is the game, if you have only a few pounds. But with five hundred pounds you can double more courageously, and work the short run hard; and that is how losses are averted and gains secured. Once at Wiesbaden I caught a croupier, out on a holiday. It was Good-Friday, you know. I gave him a stunning dinner. He was close as wax, at first--that might be the salt fish; but after the _rognons 'a la brochette,_ and a bottle of champagne, he let out. I remember one thing he said: Monsieur, ce que fait la fortune de la banque ce n'est pas le petit avantage qu'elle tire du refait--quoique cela y est pour quelquechose--c'est la te'me'rite' de ceux qui perdent, et la timidite'

de ceux qui gagnent.'"