“It is all your fault, Monsieur,” he shrieked, “for introducing into the club a half-witted creature like that.”
“Yes, it's your fault,” cried a low-browed, ugly fellow looking like a butcher in uneasy circumstances who stood next to me. Suddenly the avalanche of indignation fell upon my head. Angry, ugly men crowded round me and began to curse me instead of the dwarf. Cries arose. The adventure began, indeed, to grow idiotically perilous. I had never been thrown out of doors in my life. I objected strongly to the idea. It might possibly hurt my body, and would certainly offend my dignity. I felt that I could not make my exit through the portals of life with the urbanity on which I had counted, if, as a preparatory step, I had been thrown out of a gambling-hell. There were only two things to be done. Either I must whip out my ridiculous revolver and do some free shooting, or I must make an appeal to the lower feelings of the assembly. I chose the latter alternative. With a sudden movement I slipped through the angry and gesticulating crowd, and leaped on a chair by one of the deserted ecarte tables. Then I raised a commanding arm, and, in my best election-meeting voice, I cried:
“Messieurs!”
The unexpectedness of the manoeuvre caused instant silence.
“As my friend and myself,” I said, “are the cause of this unpleasant confusion, I shall be most happy to pay the banker the losses of the tableau.”
And I drew out and brandished my pocket-book, in which, by a special grace of Providence, there happened to be a considerable sum of money.
Murmurs of approbation arose. Then the Englishman sang out:
“But what about the money we would have won, if that little fool had played the game properly?”
The remark was received with cheers.
“That amount, too,” said I, “I shall be happy to disburse.”