When I entered the roulette room the gambling was very slack. There were only eight or nine people round the green table. Three old ladies of the special kind one sees only in the Casinos of the Riviera—blonde wig, wrinkles patiently filled up with pink paint, and a small, sickly dog emerging from a fur-lined bag—were playing very methodically with very small stakes; two Americans were staking high and losing a fair amount; an elderly Englishman of the retired major type was going en plein every now and again after consulting each time a small red-bound book, in which all the en pleins of perhaps twenty years were marked, while a party of Spaniards, evidently new to the green table, were playing irregularly in a foolish way and losing nearly every time.
A young French artillery officer, still limping, and with his right arm suspended by a black silk bandage, entered the room, came straight to the table and put two louis on the 14 a second or so before the rien ne va plus was pronounced.
The little ball stopped on the 15.
A lady who was with the officer excitedly pinched his undamaged arm.
"You never listened to me, Jean," she called out. "You forgot the little mark on your left shoulder."
Everyone within earshot, the imperturbable croupier included, smiled. The officer himself joined in, and could not help giving some explanation.
"My wife," he said, "insisted on putting my money on the number corresponding to the number of my wounds. I have fourteen to speak of, but I did not count a tiny scratch which a bullet made on my left shoulder."
Then, addressing his wife: "The next time I come back we will count everything. We'll get an en plein then!"
* * *
Nice.