The matter was now clear; my good friend, the Capuchin, who was kindly giving me his advice and assistance, seeming all the while most anxious that I should recover my loss, and assuring me that it was a momentary run of ill luck, which must change within five minutes, took care, at the same time, to communicate to my adversary, by signs above my head, the cards I had in my hand, and what I was likely to play.
What was to be done I knew not. To be cheated in so barefaced a manner was unendurable; and yet, how to avoid paying what I lost, unless I could prove the fraud, was a question difficult to solve. In this dilemma, I resolved to wake my faithful Houssaye, by touching his foot under the table, at the moment the Capuchin was executing his fraud. What was my joy then, when, on glancing towards the ci-devant trumpeter, I perceived his eyes twinkling brightly just above his arms, notwithstanding that he still pretended to sleep, and I immediately saw that he had, from the first, appreciated the talents of my companions.
My resolution was instantly taken; and letting the game proceed to its most anxious point, I saw, in the accidental mirror that the wine afforded me, the signs of the worthy Capuchin proceeding with vast celerity, when, starting suddenly up, I caught his wrist, as the hand was in the very act, and held it there with all the vigour of a young and powerful frame, excited to unusual energy by anger and indignation.
Houssaye was upon his feet in a moment, and, catching the collar of the black cavalier, who was beginning to swear some very big oaths, he flung him back upon the ground with little ceremony, at the same time dislodging from the lawn frills which adorned his wrists a pair of dice, that the honest gentleman kept there to meet all occasions.
For a minute or two the presence of mind, which is part of a sharper's profession, abandoned our two amiable companions; the Capuchin, especially, remaining without motion of any kind, his mouth open, his eyes staring, and his hands up in the air, with three fingers extended, exactly in the same attitude as he was when I detected his knavery. He soon, however, recovered himself, and jerking his hand out of my grasp with a force I knew not he possessed, he burst into a fit of laughter--"Very good; very good indeed," cried he: "so you have found it out. Well, are you not very much obliged to us for the lesson? Remember it, young man; remember it, to the last day you have to live; for you may chance to fall into the hands of sharpers, from whom you may not escape very easily."
The impudence of the fellow was beyond my patience, especially as, while he was speaking, I had split one of the dice produced from his companion's sleeve, and found it loaded with a piece of lead the size of a pea. "Whenever I meet with sharpers," said I, "I shall treat them but one way--namely, if they do not get out of the room whenever they are found out, I shall kick them down stairs, from the top to the bottom."
"Suppose there are no stairs?" said the Capuchin, coolly, moving towards the door at the same time.
"Then I shall throw them out of the window," replied I.
"I weigh two hundred weight," answered the monk, with the same imperturbable composure. "Good night, my young Wittol; you'll be caught yet, though your wings are so free. Come along, Count Crack!" he continued to his companion, whom I suffered to take up his own money after I had repossessed myself of the pistoles which he had won before I had discovered his fraud. "Your game is over for to-night. Goodnight, fair sirs; good night! God bless you, and keep you from sharpers," and leering his small leaden eyes, with a look strangely compounded of humour and cunning, and even stupidity, he rolled out of the room with his companion, leaving us to our own reflections.
When they were gone, my worthy attendant and myself stood looking at each other for some moments in silence. At length, however, he began laughing. "I saw," cried he, "what they were about from the first, but I did not think your young wit was sharp as my old knowledge; so I pretended to be asleep, and lay watching them. But you served them a famous trick, Count Louis, that you did; your father would laugh heartily to hear it."