Now they had to calculate the gains and losses of the night. The trumpeter got through quickest. He tossed Heppner the borrowed thaler, and laughed contentedly to himself. He had every reason to be cheerful, he, who had not brought a single red pfennig with him, and who now had more than a hundred marks--chiefly in silver, but with a few gold pieces also--clinking in his pocket!
The other four had all lost. The deputy sergeant-major was quite thirty marks poorer. He glanced darkly at the small sum which still lay before him. How stupid he had been! He had thrown away his luck with the thaler which he had lent Henke, that was quite certain. Now, instead of himself, this fop had hauled in the fat baker's money. That was the reward of his good nature!
Then suddenly Henke had an idea.
"Gentlemen!" he began, "I see that I have had tremendous luck. I must really give some of it away."
He dug the sleepy landlord in the ribs, and shouted in his ear, "Now then, Anton! I want two bottles of champagne."
The landlord was quite alert in a moment. He stood to win by this sort of play.
"Bring the most expensive!" trumpeted the trumpeter. "Eleven marks the bottle, Henke!"
"No matter! What our officers can do I can do also. Bring it along!"
Mine host hurried down into his cellar and fetched two bottles of Pommery from the furthermost corner, a good dry brand with which horse-dealers sometimes christened a concluded bargain.
There was no more ice to be had; so he opened the bottle as it came out of the cellar. The cork sprang to the ceiling with a loud pop, and the wine poured from the neck like a fountain.