With his cigar in his mouth, Jeremiah stood at the tables and looked on. The game of "poker" he did not understand, but his eyes glittered as he saw the free flowing of notes and gold, and the easy way in which money was lost and won. By close peering and study he soon mastered the rudiments of the game, and followed the play. It was a ten-pound limit, the minimum "ante" half a sovereign. At first he was confused at the "bluffing" which took place, but what he learned convinced him that money was to be won by cool heads, and his heart beat more quickly than usual when he saw a player with nothing in his hand take a large pool. He stood for some time at the baccarat table, and watched the game there. It was much more easily mastered than poker, and in a very few moments he understood it fairly well.
"You don't play?" said Captain Ablewhite to him, who held the bank at that moment.
"No," said Jeremiah; "not to-night."
At each table there was a player who profited by the indifferent play of his comrades, and who, according to Jeremiah's just calculation, was bound to rise a winner. "It is easy enough," said Jeremiah mentally; "only what they win they don't keep. I would!" A new world seemed to be opening out to this young man—a new world filled with fools emptying their purses into his. Why not? He did not disturb or interfere with the players, and although one superstitious man fidgeted about uneasily when Jeremiah stood at his back looking over his cards, Jeremiah's conduct was sufficiently unobtrusive and quiet not to excite displeasure.
At about two o'clock there was a kind of informal supper, of which Jeremiah freely partook, amazed at the profusion of good things handed about by the waiters. The liberality was a revelation to him, but he was discreet enough to betray no outward surprise. He was taking a lesson which he meant to profit by. Most men would have drunk too much, and most of the men in Captain Ablewhite's rooms did, but not Jeremiah Pamflett; still the two or three glasses of champagne he drank (the glasses being goblets) had a slight effect upon him. He maintained his equilibrium, however, physically and mentally. The fortunes of the night had pretty well declared themselves: three men had lost each some hundreds of pounds, and were desperately striving to get it back by plunging; others had lost in a lesser degree; the only winners were Captain Ablewhite and the two cool-headed players, one at each table, who continued playing their steady game. Jeremiah thought he would try his luck, and he took a sovereign from his pocket, and followed in the wake of the cool-headed gamester at the baccarat table. He won, and staked it again, and won. No one took any notice of his winnings, which were pushed across to him quite carelessly. At half-past four in the morning Jeremiah walked out of Captain Ablewhite's rooms with forty odd sovereigns winning money in his pocket. He walked along in a high state of elation, with his hand in his trousers pocket, clutching the gold and counting it. Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four. Yes; forty-four sovereigns. And so easily won!
He felt quite fresh, although it was his habit to be in bed before midnight. He reviewed the scene at which he had been present, recalled different hands of cards he had seen dealt out, and the course of the play, and calculated how much he might have won had he done this or that. That he would have done the right thing always he was sure; and it is likely he was correct, because it was a simple matter of calculation of odds and chances. One of the cool-headed players had won six hundred pounds; the other, four hundred. "I might have done the same," thought Jeremiah.
Captain Ablewhite had said something to him before he left.
"I wonder you don't play a bit. With your head for figures you would win a fortune."
That was it—with his head for figures. "I could snuff them all out," he thought.
Captain Ablewhite had also said, "Drop in to-morrow at two or three."