But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen enough to go.
"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."
"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was telling me about his system last night. At least, he was just beginning when I went to sleep." He applied another match to his pipe and went on, as if the idea had suddenly struck him, "Perhaps it was only his internal system he meant. I didn't wait."
"Samuel, you are quite well inside, aren't you?"
"Quite, Myra. But I have invented a sort of system for roulette, which we might——"
"There's only one system which is any good," pronounced Archie. "It's the system by which, when you've lost all your own money, you turn to the man next to you and say, 'Lend me a louis, dear old chap, till Christmas; I've forgotten my purse.'"
"No systems," said Dahlia. "Let's make a collection and put it all on one number and hope it will win."
Dahlia had obviously been reading novels about people who break the bank.
"It's as good a way of losing as any other," said Archie. "Let's do it for our first gamble, anyway. Simpson, as our host, shall put the money on. I, as his oldest friend, shall watch him to see that he does it. What's the number to be?"
We all thought hard for several moments.