"Where are you playing?" asked the Don, carelessly.
"I generally go to Dave Carter's, in Mahogany Block, for I think he deals a 'square' game."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Morito; "as much so as any of them; but they are all sharpers here, and they may have been letting you win on purpose, thinking that you had a large sum in reserve which they hope to catch hereafter. If you will take my advice, you will stop while you are ahead. You know, from your own experience as a banker, that the 'bank' always wins in the end."
"Well, I shall try a few more games, and then I shall be ready to talk with you about going South. I want to run my luck while it is good," and so saying, Bernardi rose to go.
"All right, Pietro," said Don Pedro, "be careful not to get swindled, and to keep silent about me."
The moment Bernardi was gone, the Don rang his bell violently, and sent for Monsieur Lesparre. When the latter entered the Don's room, he found his employer in a more disturbed and excited condition than he had ever before indulged in, and evidently he meant mischief to some one.
"Lesparre, that fellow Bernardi, of whom I spoke to you the other day, has been here again," burst out the Don. "I gave him a considerable sum of money to set him on his feet again, for old acquaintance' sake, expecting that he would return to his friends in the South, or, at least, behave like a decent gentleman; but he has returned to his old habits of gambling and drinking, so that, at any moment, he may come here and mortify me before a party of my guests, or, worse still, claim me as his friend when arraigned in a police court for drunkenness, etcetera. He promised to leave town as soon as the money I gave him was gone, and I was to give him then a respectable sum to start him in business elsewhere; but he has won considerably at the faro-table, and he is now independent of me, and therefore declines to keep his promise until he is ready."
"Would he go, do you think, if he should lose all he has?" asked Lesparre.
"Oh! yes, indeed; he would be forced to yield to my terms then, and I should give him nothing until he started."