“Look here then. Look at this diagram.”
“These figures represent the dozens arranged in three columns. They form a certain pattern, a pattern of seven. Now I sit comfortably at a table (no more walking for me), and take down numbers, arranging both the dozens and columns in three rows. When my figures begin to accumulate, I look back to see if I cannot find a coincidence between the pattern I am making, and the one that has gone before. When I find this, and the pattern duplicates as far as the sixth figure I simply bet that it won’t go as far as the seventh. That is to say, suppose I get a second set of figures similar to those I have set down here as far as the sixth, I simply bet against the repetition of the last. Am I clear?”
“Not very,—but I understand.”
“What do you think of it?”
“Fantastic.”
“Not at all. I am defying the bank to repeat the same combination of dozens or columns in a comparatively short space of time. The odds are overwhelmingly in my favour. You see in this game one has certain advantages over the bank. One can choose one’s moment to enter, and one can retire when one wants. Also one can make a progression.”
“Are you making one?”
“Yes, I begin by putting a hundred francs between the two dozens on which I am betting. If that should fail, I will increase to three hundred francs, and then if necessary to a thousand. In the first two cases I win fifty francs, in the third a hundred. I would always bet, of course, against the corresponding dozen or column of the combination I am following. In short, to finally beat me the bank needs to produce a coincidence of nine. That, you must admit, is extraordinary.”
“It is a game of the devil. Anything may happen.”