_Si monumenta
quoeris, circumspice._ Use your eyes, man. Look at the Kursaal, its
luxuries, its gardens, its gilding, its attractions, all of them cheap,
except the one that pays for all; all these delights, and the rents, and
the croupiers, and the servants, and the income and liveries of an
unprincipled prince, who would otherwise be a poor but honest gentleman
with one _bonne,_ instead of thirty blazing lackeys, all come from the
gains of the bank, which are the losses of the players, especially of
those that have got a system."
Severne shot in, "A bank was broken last week."
"Was it? Then all it lost has returned to it, or will return to it
to-night; for gamblers know no day of rest."
"Oh, yes, they do. It is shut on Good-Friday."
"You surprise me. Only three hundred and sixty-four days in the year!
Brainless avarice is more reasonable than I thought. Severne, yours is a
very serious case. You have reduced your income, that is clear; for an
English gentleman does not stay years and years abroad unless he has out
run the constable; and I feel sure gambling has done it. You had the
fever from a boy. Bullington Green! 'As the twig's bent the tree's
inclined.
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