CHAPTER II. PRINCE ALBERT’S CARD DEBTS
It was half past twelve, and every table at the Berkeley Bridge Club was occupied. On the threshold of the principal room a visitor, who was being shown around, was asking questions of the secretary.
“Is there any gambling here?” he inquired.
The secretary shrugged his shoulders.
“I am afraid that some of them go a little beyond the club points,” he answered. “You see that table against the wall? They are playing shilling auction there.”
The table near the wall was, perhaps, the most silent. The visitor looked at it last and most curiously.
“Who is the dissipated-looking boy playing there?” he asked.
“Prince Albert of Trent,” the secretary answered.
“And who is the little man, rather like Napoleon, who sits in the easy-chair and watches?”
“The Baron de Grost.”