"Come, messieurs, try your luck! every throw wins something, and it's only twenty sous a throw; and for twenty sous, if you choose, you can win a magnificent silver repeating watch, or a cover of the same metal, which you can have the pleasure of presenting to your good wife; or a thimble,—also of the same metal,—with which you can do homage to your venerable mother, if you are fortunate enough to possess her still."
The peasants could not resist the temptation; one of them took the dicebox and threw the balls, and Jean-Pierre counted. (Jean-Pierre is the sobriquet by which these charlatans call one another.) He counted with amazing facility and dexterity; his addition always seemed perfectly fair, but no one ever won prizes worth more than two or three sous.
"Come, messieurs, keep on, try your luck again," cried Jean-Pierre; "that throw turned out well for Jean-Pierre, but the luck will change; you'll win the big prizes, messieurs! and Jean-Pierre will be in the hole. But he will always be only too happy to fulfil his engagements with the honorable company."
The peasant, who had won only a box of matches for his twenty sous, threw again, in the hope of having better luck, and the product of the sale of his cabbages, beans, and strawberries soon passed into Jean-Pierre's pockets.
While the bumpkin stood rooted to the spot, dazed by the loss of his money, a mechanic approached the table, and, after looking on for some time, observed:
"I like biribi better."
"Here you are, monsieur! here's the biribi you're looking for!" cried the sharper, producing three cards from an apron which he wore, and in which was an enormous pocket whose gaping mouth seemed ready to engulf all the silver and loose change of the assembled company.
While the sharper arranged his biribi table, and made his three cards fly about with remarkable dexterity, another mechanic, who had followed his comrade, said to him:
"Come away, Benoît; don't bet! Those games are a fraud, you know that everyone always loses."
"What's that, monsieur, you say that everyone always loses with me?" cried the croupier, having first cleared his throat in order to speak more volubly. "Why, in that case, you can't have been present at all the throws I lost just now. Ask the honorable company here present if I haven't paid out more than a hundred francs within half an hour—yes, monsieur, a hundred francs! And I don't put it too high, and I don't count a silver watch that that gentleman over yonder won from me—the one with the handsome whiskers; and ear-rings—of pure gold, hall-marked, that I redeemed for twelve francs from that short young man who looks so happy, and who means to give the money to his virtuous mother, who has longed for a cup of chocolate for sixty years!—Isn't this so, my little man?—You see, he shows you his twelve francs and presses them to his heart. Oh, no! no one ever wins with me, messieurs! But, I tell you, this game is absolutely free from trickery; it is simply for you to guess where the card called biribi is. It isn't my fault when you guess wrong. The sums I have already lost are enormous! But if I should tell you that I always lose, I should lie; no, messieurs, I don't always lose; but you have an even chance, if you have a sharp eye, if you pick it out of three cards—that's very few—three—only three cards; if you pick out biribi, why, Jean-Pierre is certainly in the hole. Come, messieurs, make your bets! I pay cash, my pockets are well lined! there's plenty of the quibus! it rests with you whether it passes from my pockets into yours."