The game was baccarat.
The table is covered with a tightly-stretched green cloth, which is divided by yellow lines into fourteen spaces; two larger ones in the centre of the table are the places of the banker and the croupier; twelve other spaces of a smaller size indicate the seats of the rest of the players, or "punters," as they are technically termed. The table is full, as has been stated: a bank has just been terminated, and the banker retires, having lost the whole amount of his bank. The croupier, who is, of course, a professional—a bald Frenchman, nominally one of the card-room waiters—looks round the table with the air of an auctioneer. "Fifty pounds—seventy-five—a hundred—two hundred—two hundred and fifty—three hundred; thank you, sir. Mr. Haggard takes the bank, gentlemen, at three hundred pounds."
Haggard rises with a smile, seats himself in the dealer's vacant place, opposite the croupier; he places in front of him a pile of gold and notes. With the rapidity of one of Messrs. Coutts' young men, the French croupier counts the money; he arranges the gold in little piles, and the notes in three little heaps, placing a small paper-weight on each heap. Then the croupier tears open two packets of new cards, flinging the old ones into a waste-paper basket at his side. He invites various players to make the cards; this is done in rather a perfunctory manner. With a sort of huge paper-knife the Frenchman passes the cards to Haggard, and as he does so, remarks in a clear, but mechanical voice: "Gentlemen, the bank is opened for three hundred pounds." Haggard takes the cards, and, dividing them into two equal parts, rapidly shuffles them, by raising a corner of each parcel simultaneously, and letting the corners slip with a rapid "brrr." Evidently, from the dexterity and precision with which this feat is accomplished, Georgie Warrender's affianced lover is no novice. He hands the cards to his right-hand neighbour, who carefully cuts them; each player puts forth his stake towards the middle of the table, in front of the space allotted him. These stakes are gold only as yet, and no man's venture seems over five pounds. Haggard takes up about a sixth part of the cards. "Gentlemen," cries the croupier, "the game is made." Haggard places a card to the left, for that half of the table; another at his right, for the other half; a third one he takes himself: he repeats the process. The croupier slips the blade of his huge paper-knife underneath the two cards which are on either side of the dealer, and deposits them, unexposed, with marvellous adroitness, before the punter on either side whose turn it is to play. Court cards and tens count as nothing, the ace as one; should the player make either eight or nine he invariably rests contented, and exhibits it; if below eight, he exercises his fancy or discretion, and takes or refuses a third card. Then Haggard turns up his own hand, doing precisely the same. He has drawn a knave and a six; he takes another card; this turns out to be an ace. "I have seven," he says. The player to his right holds eight, the player to his left has only six—the right side wins, the left side loses. In an instant the croupier, with his huge paper-knife, sweeps up the cards, and, with the rapidity of a conjuring trick, he casts them into a wooden bowl in the middle of the table; then he rapidly sweeps off all the stakes on one side of the table; with equal celerity he places each man's winnings before the players on the other side. There are no quarrels, and no mistakes. Everybody is terribly polite. And so the game goes on.
Though the amount played for is serious, a good deal of rather bald conversation and chaff goes on. There is a considerable amount of give and take. If any one has lost his temper, as well as his money, he takes good care not to show it; to do so here would be indeed bad form. Young Lamb has already paid several visits to Mr. Levison's little table. Haggard's deal goes on, no very startling coup coming off, but it has been a good bank as yet, for the pile in front of Haggard has increased to nearly six hundred pounds. Young Lamb having gnawed his extinguished cigar till it somewhat resembles a quid, and having consequently swallowed a considerable amount of nicotine, flings it away with a curse. As the last note of his last loan from Levison is swept up by the remorseless pelle (for so the gigantic paper-knife is technically termed), Lamb gives an order to the waiter, and pays another visit to the smiling little Jew. Their business is rapidly transacted; Lamb redeems some half-dozen I O U's which he had previously given to the steward, hurriedly signs a formal-looking instrument, which is duly witnessed, and stuffs into his breast-pocket a big roll of notes, which he does not even stop to count. "I do hope you'll be careful, sir," remarks the steward to Lamb in an affectionate whisper, and in the tone of an anxious mother to her favourite child. Lamb returns to his seat at the table; he has lost eight hundred pounds already, but the bulgey lump in his breast-pocket is another five thousand pounds. The waiter places by his side a small gueridon on which is a little carafe of green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass; he also hands to the young fellow a box of big full-flavoured cigars, of the brand of Anselmo del Valle. Lamb fills his case, and lights this the ne plus ultra of a soothing weed.
"Dutch courage, Lammy, my boy," remarked Spunyarn, as he calmly helps himself to one of the youth's cigars.
"You'd be doing the same, Shirtings, if you'd been hit at this beast of a game as I have."
"Shirtings" was the playful name bestowed on the noble lord, in reference to the well-known fact that the Spunyarn money had been made in a Manchester cotton mill, and with that money it was said that the Spunyarn title had been paid for; the first gentleman in Europe not disdaining such bargains. Lamb swallows a second glass of his panacea. The real fact is that the boy likes it because it is sweet, the after-taste indistinctly resembling the distant memories of the peppermint bull's-eyes of his early youth. But green Chartreuse unhappily is not innocent; it is more than a spirit, it is a powerful drug. Fired by this second draught, his tired eyes already a ferrety red, his mouth dry with the tobacco, the drink and the excitement, Lamb in a rasping voice shouts, "Banco."
There is a sudden hush. The whist players, who had finished for the evening, hurry to the baccarat table; the other players, some of whom had already staked their money, reluctantly withdraw their various amounts. The croupier announces, intoning as does a high-church curate, "There is seven hundred and forty pounds in the bank, gentlemen."
Lamb with shaking fingers places the required amount in front of him. Haggard, the dealer, apparently unconcerned, continues the game. There is a dead silence. Neither dealer or punter take a third card. The cards are turned. The dealer has an eight and king, the punter a five and three. A tie. The perspiration stands on young Lamb's face; again his cigar goes out. The croupier pushes the seven hundred and forty pounds of the unlucky player a foot nearer to the bank. The next coup will decide the matter. If Lamb wins, he will get his own money back, if he loses, then his money is gone for good. Again a dead silence, again the cards are dealt; this time the bank wins; there is a loud noise of excited talking, above which rises the monotonous chant of the croupier, "There is fourteen hundred and eighty pounds in the bank, gentlemen."
The wretched young man persistently exercises his right of crying "Banco," and so practically going double or quits each time. But "the cards never forgive," and as a rule Dame Fortune is relentless to the reckless player. Three more coups are played, each of which the banker, that is to say Haggard, wins. At the end of the third coup, Lamb loses, at a single blow, nearly three thousand pounds; he calls the steward to his side, a short whispered conversation takes place. "Five thousand nine hundred and twenty pounds in the bank." Again the young fellow repeats his fatal "Banco," as he stakes a fresh pile of notes handed to him by the obsequious Jew. Again he loses. Haggard has won, of him alone, eleven thousand pounds. Nobody feels inclined to go on; every one is rather scandalized, for it is apparent to all that the boy has become suddenly, thoroughly intoxicated.