Sometimes the dim, narrow door opens into an even narrower passage, or a little ante-room leading into a larger apartment, where in a recess, on a bracket—beneath which a joss-stick or so sends up a blue spiral of scented smoke—a plaster figure of Buddha, resplendent in gold and crimson, sits smiling his tolerant, far-seeing smile, out over the heads of thirty or more men all intent upon a game of fan-tan.
No European is allowed to play fan-tan with a Chinaman in Melbourne; so we must satisfy our lust of gain vicariously by watching the players, by putting ourselves in the place of first one man, then another, of all the throng who have placed their money on the table; or in the place of the loiterers who have lost all, and yet linger, gazing eagerly, with a hunger that nothing will ever satisfy, at the shifting piles of counters and coin.
There are two croupiers; one makes the stakes, entering them on a paper-pad with a long camel’s-hair brush, which he holds quite upright, and manipulates with a marvellous delicacy like a watchmaker does his tool.
The stakes are made—that is, every man playing pushes out in front of him what money he wishes to risk—maybe a sovereign, maybe a single threepenny-bit—each being entered in the first croupier’s book for fear of any dispute.
Then the second croupier shakes out of a basin a number of little greenish-white counters; and places over as many of them as possible a small metal cover with a stem to it. This done, he begins to rake towards him with an ivory paper-knife all the counters outside the cover, calling the numbers out loud as he goes. Soon all the loose counters are gathered aside, and no more bets must be made, everything depending now, for each man, on the number beneath the little cover, some having betted on the odds, some on the evens. For a moment or so the croupier hesitates solemnly, his delicately poised forefinger and thumb just touching the little brass stem, and looks around him. Feverishly the players push forward higher stakes, or stretch out eager hands to claw back what they have already placed on the table. There is an absolutely dead silence in the room; it would seem as if nobody so much as breathed. The shiny yellow faces are immobile, as if cast in metal, only the narrow dark eyes gleam, and shift, and glance.
Then, with a gesture of infinite ceremony, the little lid is lifted, and the croupier begins to rake the counters towards him one by one with his ivory knife. After the first two or three are moved the more seasoned players, who know at a glance what remains, odd or even, push forward their money and move away from the table; or draw out of their sleeves fat notebooks wherein to enter their winnings; but for us the breathless charm holds to the very end; and, till the last counter is drawn aside, we cannot be certain whether it will prove to have been ninety-seven or ninety-eight—a hundred, or a hundred and one.
One little old man I particularly remember, in a faded blue blouse, who one night began by putting down shillings and florins, and always losing. If he shifted his stake from odd to even, from even to odd, the game shifted too, till it seemed like some malignant fate. But still he went on, each stake higher than the last; from half-crowns to ten-shilling pieces, and then to sovereigns, and yet there was nothing reckless in his air, none of the fevered excitement a European gambler would show. Only an intense, silent, agonizing anxiety, which seemed to set such a strain on him that all his muscles were rigid, and he appeared like a dead man, not moving at all, excepting to automatically push forward his stakes. One felt that his blood had ceased to circulate, that his heart no longer beat. Only in his hungry eyes did there seem to remain a spark of life burning fiercely beneath the wrinkled lids, which it veritably seemed to shrivel as with fire.
At last, in a sort of desperation, he pushed forward four sovereigns—all that remained to him in the world, I believe—placing them on the even. Never, never shall I forget his face as the croupier raked aside with his ivory knife the scattered counters, then very slowly—more slowly than ever it seemed to me—with the air of performing a sacred rite, lifted the little lid. For one moment the old gambler gazed as if spellbound at the compact pile which remained; gave one awful shudder, which shook him like a reed, from head to foot, and then, turning, slipped silently away among the crowd, God only knows where, or to what—to some world of shadows, I veritably believe, that world which is so near, so easily reached, for a few short hours by the magic pipe, or for perpetuity by the merest prick of a “bare bodkin.” Still I lingered, hoping past hope for the little grey man, till the very last counter had been drawn aside—one hundred—one hundred and one—one hundred and two—one hundred and three—odds!
From the gaming-houses we would drift into the eating-houses, and perchance sup on savoury ragout of duck, served in a porcelain bowl, flanked by lesser bowls, each filled with some mysterious odoriferous condiment, or venture daringly on eggs of an infinite age and most potent flavour; then pry into the kitchen, clean as a new pin, yet fragrant with all the mysterious scents of the East; peep into the great caldrons in which the brass-bound cooking vessels steamed and simmered; lift the green jade teapot out of its wadded case, and sip tea from one of the fragile little bowls, which are kept ever at hand in a basin of clear cold water.
In some of the gambling-houses men were playing a game somewhat resembling dominoes, the slips used being cut out of black wood, and marked with any number, up to twenty, of sunken red or white spots, the arrangement of which seemed capable of infinite variation; one slip perhaps showing four white, two red, and again four white; or two red, three white, two white, three red; the different colours crossing the dominoes horizontally, or diagonally, or vertically. A croupier holds all the slips and plays them, the lookers on laying the stakes; but never for one moment does he glance either at what he holds, or places on the table, for all the time his eyes are wanted in case some hand should be pushed out furtively to rearrange the stakes. His slim fingers, however, are never still; like lightning they skim over the surface of the slips he holds, and he calls out the numbers as quickly as he plays them. It seems quite impossible to believe for a moment that he can really count them, as he brushes them with a butterfly touch; even if he did it is a mystery to any Western mind how he could differentiate between the colours, but the even monotonous voice never hesitates; though perhaps, all on one slip, there may be five or six different arrangements of dots, still his voice runs on without a break—“six red, four white, three red, one white, two red”—or again, “three red, four white, eight red, one white,” slip after slip dropping with a little crack on the table, as he enumerates their marking as quickly as the words can be formed.