The Young Man who Knows Everything wanted Tibbitts to make plain the point to the remark, and then the Professor had to go on and explain that what Mr. Tibbitts intended was that a man who would gamble at all must have an infinitesimal brain, so small, indeed, as to make it safe from the best marksman. The young man pondered over it a minute, and expressed himself satisfied.
There is another story of a woman, an old and haggard woman, who came every day and staked a Napoleon. She would not play unless there should be in the room a child, a young, fresh child; and she used to take the baby, and put her Napoleon in its little hand, and have it place it on the black or red, as the child’s whim dictated. And it is said that she generally won. Like all the rest of the mysterious beings of the gambling hall, this eccentric old lady disappeared one day, and was never seen again.
THE YOUNG MAN WANTED TIBBITTS TO MAKE PLAIN THE POINT.
THE REGULAR LEGEND.
It made little difference to her successors. The croupier, that calm, impassive man, raked in the Napoleons, or raked them out, the wheel revolved, and the life or death of one habitué of the place made no more difference than a footprint on the sands of the sea.