The Devil was certainly in the ball: round it twirled, and dropped into zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond. Our friend received five hundred pounds for his stake; and the croupiers and lookers-on began to stare at him.
There were twelve thousand pounds on the table. Suffice it to say, that Simon won half, and retired from the Palais Royal with a thick bundle of bank-notes crammed into his dirty three-cornered hat. He had been but half an hour in the place, and he had won the revenues of a prince for half a year!
Gambouge, as soon as he felt that he was a capitalist, and that he had a stake in the country, discovered that he was an altered man. He repented of his foul deed, and his base purloining of the restaurateur’s plate. ‘O honesty!’ he cried, ‘how unworthy is an action like this of a man who has a property like mine!’ So he went back to the pawnbroker with the gloomiest face imaginable. ‘My friend,’ said he, ‘I have sinned against all that I hold most sacred: I have forgotten my family and my religion. Here is thy money. In the name of Heaven, restore me the plate which I have wrongfully sold thee!’
But the pawnbroker grinned, and said, ‘Nay, Mr. Gambouge, I will sell that plate for a thousand francs to you, or I never will sell it at all.’
‘Well,’ cried Gambouge, ‘thou art an inexorable ruffian, Trois-boules; but I will give thee all I am worth.’ And here he produced a billet of five hundred francs. ‘Look,’ said he, ‘this money is all I own; it is the payment of two years’ lodging. To raise it, I have toiled for many months; and, failing, I have been a criminal. O Heaven! I stole that plate that I might pay my debt, and keep my dear wife from wandering houseless. But I cannot bear this load of ignominy—I cannot suffer the thought of this crime. I will go to the person to whom I did wrong. I will starve, I will confess; but I will, I will do right!’
The broker was alarmed. ‘Give me thy note,’ he cried; ‘here is the plate.’
‘Give me an acquittal first,’ cried Simon, almost broken-hearted; ‘sign me a paper, and the money is yours.’ So Trois-boules wrote according to Gambouge’s dictation: ‘Received, for thirteen ounces of plate, twenty pounds.’
‘Monster of iniquity!’ cried the painter, ‘fiend of wickedness! thou art caught in thine own snares. Hast thou not sold me five pounds’ worth of plate for twenty? Have I it not in my pocket? Art thou not a convicted dealer in stolen goods? Yield, scoundrel, yield thy money, or I will bring thee to justice!’
The frightened pawnbroker bullied and battled for a while; but he gave up his money at last, and the dispute ended. Thus it will be seen that Diabolus had rather a hard bargain in the wily Gambouge. He had taken a victim prisoner, but he had assuredly caught a tartar. Simon now returned home, and, to do him justice, paid the bill for his dinner, and restored the plate.
. . . . .