"What's the game?"
"Fifteen hundred."
"And the stakes?"
"Whatever you please, messieurs; what shall it be?"
"We don't want to ruin ourselves; say, two francs each."
"Two francs it is."
"I have seen people play for five hundred francs a game," said Batonnin.
"The deuce! that's flying rather high. But when a man's very rich——"
"Oh! it isn't always the richest men who play for the biggest stakes—rather, those who want to pass themselves off for millionaires, and who are in need of money."
"Our excellent Monsieur Batonnin, with all his air of indifference, seems to observe everything."