“Yes, of course,” I responded, laughing. “I suppose scarcely any man goes to Nice without going over to Monty and risking a few louis.”
“Were you lucky?”
“So, so. One season I won five thousand francs. In fact, I’ve never lost on the whole season. I’ve always left the Riviera with some of the bank’s money.”
“Then you can heartily congratulate yourself,” he said, “I’m the reverse. I generally lose. Do you believe in any system at roulette?”
“No; they are all frauds,” I answered promptly. “Except one,” he interposed. “There’s one based on the law of averages, which must turn up in your favour if you’re only patient enough. The reason why it is so difficult is because it’s such a long and tedious affair.”
“Explain it,” I urged, for a new system that was infallible was, to me, of greatest interest. I had, in the days before my blindness, made a study of the chances at roulette, and had played carefully upon principles which had, to me, appeared most natural. The result had been that with care I had won—not much, it was true—but it was better than leaving one’s money to swell the company’s dividends.
“The system,” he said, tossing off his glass of curaçoa at one gulp, “is not at all a complicated one. If you study the permanences of any table—you can get them from the Gazette Rose—you’ll find that each day the largest number of times either colour comes up in succession is nine. Now, all you have to do is to go to a table at the opening of the play, and taking one colour, red or black it makes no difference, stake upon it, and allow your money to accumulate until it is swept away. If the colour you stake upon comes up eight times in succession, and you have originally staked twenty francs, your gains lying on the table will amount to two thousand five hundred and sixty francs. Even then, don’t touch it. The colour must, in the law of averages, come up nine times in succession each day, taking the week through. If it comes up, you’ll win five thousand and twenty francs for the louis you staked, and then at once leave the table, for it will not come up nine times again that day. Of course, this may occur almost at the opening of the play, or not until the table is near closing, therefore it requires great patience and constant attendance. To-day it may not come up nine times, but it will probably come up nine times on two occasions to-morrow, and so the average always rights itself.”
His theory was certainly a novel one, and impressed me. There might, I thought, be something in it. He had never had patience to try it, he admitted, but he had gone through a whole year’s “permanences,” and found that only on three or four occasions had it failed.
For half an hour or so he sat lucidly explaining the results of his studies of the game with the air of a practised gambler. In these I became at once interested—as every man is who believes he has found the secret of how to get the right side of the bank; but we were at length compelled to put down our cigars, and he led the way into the drawing-room, where the ladies awaited us.
The room was a large, handsome one, elegantly furnished, and lit by two great lamps, which shed a soft, subdued light from beneath their huge shades of silk and lace. Mabel was sitting at the open grand piano, the shaded candlelight causing the beautiful diamond star in the coils of her dark-brown hair to flash with a dazzling iridescence, and as I entered she turned and gave me a sweet smile of welcome.