“Vingt-trois, rouge, impair, et passe!”
Out bounced the Italian, and Mensmore seized his chair, turning to Bruce with white face as he murmured:
“You hear! Twenty-three!”
The barrister nodded, and placed his hands on Mensmore’s shoulders as though to steady him.
Mensmore staked his ten louis on the red. They became twenty, then forty. Another whirl and they were eighty. A fourth made them one hundred and sixty.
Mensmore was now so agitated that the table and the players swam before his eyes. But Bruce, under the stress of exciting circumstances, had the gift of remaining preternaturally cool.
At the fifth coup the sum to Mensmore’s credit was £256. He would have left it all on the table had not Bruce withdrawn £16 in notes, as the maximum is £240.
When Mensmore won the sixth and seventh coups a buzz of animated interest passed around the board. People began to note the run on the red, together with the fact that a man was staking the maximum each time. Even the croupiers cast fleeting glances at the new-comer, when, several times in succession, the long rake pushed across the table the little pile of money and notes.
Thenceforth Mensmore sat in a state of stupor more pronounced now that he was playing and awake than when he dreamt he was playing.