DANGEROUS DILEMMAS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF "DANGEROUS DILEMMAS."
The gambling tables at Spa— Compulsory mud bath—Saving one's life by exchanging an overcoat—A fortunate shipwreck.
"You are in a vein of luck and yet cease to play," said the Dutch banker Oppenheim to me over my shoulder at the roulette table at Spa.
Since that bright autumn day both Germany and Belgium have seen the evil results attending public gambling when practised by weak-minded individuals, and have banished the too fascinating game to Monaco, to the great delight of the prince of the smallest kingdom in Europe.
Man, being a speculative animal by nature, finding trente et quarante and roulette forbidden by a paternal government, has had recourse to écarté and baccarat, and instead of playing at the kursaal in the sight of everybody he now stakes his money in the seclusion of a club. The facilities for gambling are more numerous than of yore, but you cannot always depend upon the fairness of your opponents' game, nor on realising your winnings. At the public tables there could be no cheating, and when you won you could rely on getting your money.
The bankruptcies and suicides accruing from the gambling mania have not diminished, but they are now attributed to other causes. A man does not care to bespatter the Turkey carpet of the club house with his brains, and a severe loss or a grand coup made at a club is not usually the subject of a newspaper paragraph. When a Garcia broke the bank at Baden Baden the fact was commented on by the whole European press. A public gambling table is to some people's thinking an outlet for the over speculative and a check against folly, but what is the use of discussing the question, has not the fatal decree gone forth, and the clink of the ivory ball and the "faites le jeu" of the impassable croupier are no longer to be heard in the richly decorated halls of the kursaal at Spa. But at the time the above remark was made roulette and trente et quarante were in the heyday of their dangerous career.
"You are in a vein of luck and yet cease to play," the Baron repeated.