LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 244, 22 March 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HALF THE PENALTY

(Continued.) The administrators of the bank, in their laudable anxiety to please old customers and attract new ones, had announced an entertainment on a magnificent scale, including a concert, vocal and instrumental, illuminations a giorno, and ball. To this fete the visitors and a limited number of the inhabitants had been invited, and among those specially honoured with a card were Monsieur and Madame Bummel. It is needless to say that on this memorable occasion Trudchen was in all her glory ; she had selected for her adornment the identical dress which in days gone by had been the admiration and envy of her suburban neighbours, and as her toilette was not, at a rough guess, more than three years behind the prevailing fashion, she really looked what Mr Angelo Bantam would have styled " re-markable." With this resplendent creature on his arm, Herr Bummel, himself gorgeously attired, paraded through the rooms, listened approvingly to the music, and swallowed more glasses of punch than were good for him; until, having finally deposited his fair companion on a sofa qeside one of her lady friends, he resolved to enjoy himself a little on his own account, anE see what was going on in the salle de jeu. Chance led his steps towards an inner apartment devoted to the trent* et quarante, and there a scene of unusual animation arrested his attention. The red had already passed six times, and a quantity of gold and notes lay scattered in heaps on the compartment of the winning color; around the table a throng of spectators were stationed, watching with intense eagerness the cards as they successively fell from the hands of the dealer, and quivering with feverish emotion as the officiating croupier again and again proclaimed, 'Rouge gagne, et couleur!' ' JVein,' muttered the ex-tailor, fascinated by the glittering piles before him, and nervously inserting his thumb and forefinger into his waistcoat-pocdet, 'nein, das mare zu arg. I should never forgive myself if I missed a chance like this.'

And as he spoke, down went a double frederick on the red.

The serve continued unchecked; the impassable croupier had just proclaimed the unvarying formula for the eleventh time; thirty two double fredericks lay in front of the delighted Herr Bummel; and, after a moment's hesitation whether he should withdraw a portion or leave the entire sum for another coup, he, although with a slight misgiving* determined on running the risk. ' Nothing venture, nothing,' said he. 'Neui"' pursued the dealer, announcing the point of la noire. Our hero uttered a deep sigh of relief, and glancing exultingly round, beheld at the opposite side of the table the sharp penetrating eyes of Herr Kriechwurn fixed intently roon him.

''Mirjgall' thought he, «I shall have more then enough to pay him.' Meanwhile, two kings and a ten had been dealt for the red; the excitement was at its climax, for all depended on the next card. It was the knave of spades.' ' Quarante,' exclaimed the croupier, 'rouge perd, et couleur.' And before Herr Bummel could realise the fact, the thirtytwo double fredericks had disappeared as if by magic, and the punters were assiduously backing the black. At the same instant he felt a gentle touch his arm. ' It is time to go home,' said Triidohen. # * * * *

Two days later, a fresh summons brought the unlucky offender once more face to face with the terrible Polizei - Beamter, who glared at him majestically from the interior of his caged den. ' If I am not mistaken,' said he, when the hundred florins had been duly handed oyer and counted, ' this is your second infraction of the law.' There was no denying this, so the denlinquent simply bowed assent. ' A third appearance here,' continued the official, 'will entail on you—how many months, Herr Schramm ?' ' Six, Herr Unter - Director-Substitut,' answered the greffier. ' Just so. Six months' imprisonment,' repeated the Beamter complacently, refreshing htmself at the same time with a pinch of snuff from a horn-box on the bureau. 'ln the town prison,' he added, separating as he spoke the packet of five-florin notes into two portionus; ja, Herr, in the town prison. Adje.' Which parting salutation Herr Bummel rightly considering in the right of a dismissal, he retired with great alacrity. As he left the office, he came upon Herr Kriechwurm, sneaking in doubtless to secure his share of the spoil. 'Ah, ha,' he cried, grasping the other's reluctant hand, ' the very man I wished to see! One doesn't meet with an informer every day, and it is quite a relief to have a look at a pleasant specimen like you. A nice comfortable trade it must be. Do you know how they treat gentlemen of your kidney in London? They put them under the pump, mein Ueber, and when they are well washed they rub them down with an oaken towel. What a blessing for you to be a Nassauer, nicht rvahr ! Better to pocket fifty florins than to be ducked in a horse-pond, eh? Well, it's your turn today, but it will be mine by and by. Can you guess what is in store for us next time ? Six months in the town prison, share and share alike, mein Sokartz —three for me and three for you. So make your mind easy, go on with your little game, and depend upon it, whenever they lock me up, I'll take care they don't forget you.' ' I never saw a fellow so frightened in my life,' said Herr Bummel, when subsequently relationg the occurrence to his friend Baumhauer. ' I really believe he thought I was in earnest. No, no, they don't catch me tripping again. I've half a mind to try my luck at Homburg- I shall be safe there.' 'Or Nauheim,'suggested the landlord of the Blue Lion. 'Why not Wilhelmsbad,' returned the other, ' where they only uncover the tables when the Frankfort train comes in? No, no small stakes or double zeros for me. I'll run over to Homburg to-morrow, and take Trudched with me.' And so he did. *»#» * ■ ■ ♦

We may now briefly pass over'the few years which elapsed between the foregoing conveisation and the final suppression of the gaming-tables in Germany, as containing little worthy of especial record in co«". ection with the hero of our sketoh . v^} n S this period, although still" a rw-Ment in Wiesbaden, he wisely eschewed, the peruoui

temptations of the local Kursaal; and becoming on each succeeding visit more and more attached to Homburg, determined on henceforth confining his operations to a systematic razzia against the establishment presided over by M. Blanc. It does not, however, appear that the financial prosperity of that potentate underwent any notable dimunition in consequence of the return-tickets periodically invested in by the indefatigable Herr Bummel; nor, on the other hand, did the exchequer of the latter suffer so much as might have been expected from this species of guerrilla warfare. From Prau Trudchen, though unable to cure her husband of his roving propensities, contrived to render them comparatively harmless by judiciously limiting the amount of capital he took with him ; and as when he did win, which occasionally happened, the proceeds were loyally handed over to her, it turned out that the acconnts were pretty evenly balanced at tke end of the year. But the close of 1872 was at hand, and the days of the tapis vert were numbered, a few weeks more, and the final taille would have been dealt, and the roulette-ball would have sped on its erractic course for the last time. Never had season been more brillant; never had a denser or more motley crowd, assembled together from every quarter of the globe, penetrated within the walls of the Kursall, than dnring the brief interval preceding its farewell seance. Already had Baden-Baden, forsaken by its ex-sovereign Dupressoir, subsided into forlorn respectability; already had the hat of a Russian punter enshrouded the roulette at Ems; Nauheim and Wilhelmsbad were things of the past; and Chevet, swallow-like, flittting with his pots and pans to a more genial clime, had abandoned Wiesbaden to the horrors of an indigenious cuisine. One temple of fortune still remained, but the moment was fast approaching when its spacious halls should in their turn be deserted, and its ' rien ne va plus' should become a melancholy reality.

It was early in the afternoon of the eventful day, ' big with the fate of Homburg and of Blanc, when Herr Bummel, after having refreshed himself since his arrival with a very copious one o'clock repast, leisurely ascended the steps leading to the Kursaal. His usually jocund face wore a decent aspect of gravity, as befitted the occasion; that cold and cheerless day being destined to witness, not only the last gleam of Homburgian splendour, but his own final appearance as a combatant in the hazardous arena. Mollified by the assurance that whilst at three kreutzers the point would in future be the sum-total of his ambition, and still more by the promise—should fortune prove propitious—of a certain amethyst necklace on which she had set her eye, Triidchen had not investigated too closely the contents of Tier husband's portemonnaie; so that with fifty florins in his pocket, and a newly-organised system in his head, he strolled into the play-room strong and confident, and seated himself at the rouge-et.noir table in a chair just vacated by a cleaned-out Russian. But •itherthe seat he had chosen was an unlucky one, or the infallibility of his system existed only in his own imagination; for before half an hour had elapsed he found his little nest-egg rapidly decreasing, and all his combinations completely baffled by the unaccountable perverseness of the blind and fickle goddess. If he essayed a martingale, it broke down exactly when it ought to have succeeded; if he followed a sSrie, its progress was invariably checked by an intermittence; in short, he was always too soon or too late for everything he attempted, until utterly disgusted' and stowing away in his waistcoat pocket the scanty remains of his capital, consisting of one double frederick and a florin, he resigned his chair to a dingylooking Israelite from the Juden Gasse, and betook himself to an adjoining compartment, where the roulette was in full swing. ' Trente-six,' announced the croupier as he entered the salle. Now Herr Bummel had an idea, dirived from the juxtaposition of the numbers, that thirty-six seldom came up unaccompanied by zero, and considered this a fauoradle oppgrtunity for testing the correctness of his theory. 'Besides,' thought he, 'a florin more or less will not break me;' and this consolatory reflection decided him on depositing his stake in the compartment designated by a large round 0. ' Thirty-five florins would pull me through,' he reflected, as the ball went frantically whirling about, until, its struggles becoming feebler and feebler, it finally dropped into one of the little divisions prepared for its reception. 'Zero,' said the croupier, whereupon a systematic buzz began to circulate among the bystandets. Herr Bummel, radiant with joy, advanced to receive his winnings ; but what was his surprise when the employe, rake in hand, pushed towards him a glittering mass of gold! He had played the double frederick instead of the florin. ******

The next train proceeding in the direction of Frankfort carried with it at least one contented passenger in the person of our hero, who, unwilling to dim the glory of his triumph by any subsequent failure, had started at once on his way homewards, leaving Homburg unconcernedly to its fate. It was a dark and chilly evening when he arrived at the Weisbaden station, and a dense fog hung about the trees of the long alley leading to the town. Walking at a brisk pace, he had almost reached the end of, the avenue, when his attention was arrested by a suppliant ton* soliciting charity. Herr Bummel was naturally kind-hearted; and especially on an occasion" like the present, bewildered as he was by his recent good fortune, he could not for the life of him have turned a deaf ear to such an appeal; so, adr vancing towards the nearest gaelamp, and drawing out his portemonnaie, he extracted from it the florin which he had intended placing on the zero, and gave it, with a few words of commiseration to the petitioner. As he did so, the light fell upon the features of the latter, and Herr Bummel, starting back in consternation, faltered out: To be continued.