THE STORY-TELLER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3190, 3 December 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE STORY-TELLER.

THE BARON'S OPPONENT. IJaiion Yon liaciinitz was a member oE the Baccarat Club in the I!uc Kaymond de Toulouse of Paris. He was a somewhat remarkable mail. A member of one of the great but impecunious families of Saxony, lie had, some five years before, been caught young, and married by a brilliant-complexioncd, though not very rich American girl. For a year or two they had been content to live on in his dull native town, with its round of first-rate operas but thirdrate everything else. At the AngloAmerican Club the baron had cvirced a certain aptitude for ecarte, poker, picquet, and so uniform had been his success at these games that it was not long before he began to yearn for fresh fields and pastures new, where he could play for higher stakes than were obtained in a second-rate Herman town and third-rate AngloAmerican society. His wife, too, impressed by his success, and not unwilling to realise larger returns, encouraged him in his ambition, with the result that a move was made to Paris, and he became a member of the famous Baccarat Club. From the moment of his arrival, eight years before our story opens, Fortune had smiled upon the young adventurer. But this was, perhaps, not so much that she showed him any special kindness as that he left no stone unturned to assist the fickle goddess in declaring in his favour. This young man was not a gambler by nature ; that is to say, he never

risked his money where lie considered the odds were against him. In all games of chance combined with skill he knew that skill must tell in the long run. He never overestimated his own play or underestimated that of an adversary. He knew, too, that a cool head, and an unwearied brain always had the odds in their favour, and, gambling as he did merely as a matter of business, he strictly took advantage of these and other palpable verities. On first becoming a member of the club, he had confined himself to playing in the small hours of the morning. All tlie highest play was between 9 and 1 o'clock, and these hours he had at first avoided on principle. After 1 o'clock he had noticed that play became slacker, and that those players who still stayed (in were either over-excited with wine or beginning: to tire; and, by three o'clock in the morning, there were, as a rule, but a few jaded or Lalfintoxicated members; fair game, he considered, for a young man of regular habits, and who took a sufficiency of sleep. As the Baron said to his wife, he was in Paris on business, and pleasure and convenience must give way to that, and she, being a practical young woman, cheerfully acquiesced. The consequence was that this enterprising young couple kept very curious hours indeed. They went tD bed regularly at four o'clock in the afternoon, and got up as regularly at midnight. Yon Easlinitz then dressed himself faultlessly in evening costume, kissed his dear little wife, who wished him good success, and turned into the club as fresh as paint. And this plan for some time succeeded excellently well. Indeed, the Frau Baronin, who was not quite as ambitious as her husband, was beginning to look forward to their retirement on a very fair competency in the near future. But this was by no means Yon Bachnitz's idea. A comfortable competency did not appear half tempting enough for him. He swore in his heart that he would stick to business until he was really a wealthy man. His success was

undoubtedly great with the comparatively small fry, but his practice in the small hours of the morning was only to be the prelude to greater things in the real gambling hours of the club. He only waited his opportunity to rake in, as he believnd himself capable of doing, the thousands which changed hands before one o'clock, in place of the hundreds which he gathered all too slowly after that hour- In vain his wife used all her efforts to induce him to be content with the sufficiency he had already amassed. He paid her no heed, but bade her wait patiently and he would make her a rich woman. Then it was that, about three years before Raoul Fleicher obtained membership in the club, Von

Rachnitz had become one of the nine-to-one o'clock habitues. As in his earlier ventures, his luck had from the first proved phenomenal, and this was the more astonishing, as here he was pitted against the finest and coolest players in the world. However, bad fortune was sure to come nt last—at least so the knowing ones said. By this time Yon Rachnitz had amassed a large sum of money— larger, indeed, than any of his associates imagined. He and his wife were living very smartly in a small way, and were by degrees making good their position in the very best society. He was very popular with the leading members of the club, amongst whom w«re the cream of the male Parisian aristocracy. " My dear," said the Baroness one day, " I wish you would give up play." " I wish I could, my love. I would give it up to-morrow if I saw my way to do so." "I can't see what is to prevent

you, if you wish. It's simply tempting Providence to trust to your luck any longer." "You are perfectly right in what you say, but you must remember that the majority of the members of the Baccarat Club don't look on gaming as a business, and if it was for a moment imagined that 1 played only for the money I make we should" lose ground terribly |in society." " I don't see why." " You do not, and yet I've told you often enough that a man who has played successfully is always expected to go on giving his fellow members an opportunity for revenge. I should go down terribly in their estimation if I suddenly stopped playing without assigning any reason. You don't know how suspicious people become of a man who gives up play before play gives up him. I don't see how I'm to abandon it altogether unless we make up our minds to leave Paris and settle elsewhere." "Ah, but that's out of the question, just when we have got into society and all that. By the by, were invited to the Due de Pincenez." " One of the very people, my love, who would never invite us •again if I were to give up play suddenly and without good excuse." " Oh, well then, I suppose it can't be helped," said the liaroness, resigning herself, as she had often done before, to what seemed to be inevitable. It was two days after this conversation that Itaoul Fleischer became a member of the club. He was a rude, overbearing, vulgar creature, egotistical and pushing to a degree ; boastful about his superiority at games of skill, and exasperatingly confident of his luck at games of chance. No one appeared to know precisely where he came from, although he bore letters from eminently respectable gentlemen, dated at different parts of the Continent. Fleischer had not been a member of the club a week when it was suggested to Von Rachuitz that he should challenge this very objectionable person to a great bout at ecarte, in which, if his luck —which was by this time proverbial in the club—held good, M. Raoul Fleischer might be taught a lesson. " Well, baron," said the latter one night, addressing Yon Rachnitz with a vulgar assumption of familiarity, " lucky, as usual, I suppose ?" " I don't know so much about luck, M. Fleischer; I'm prepared to back my skill against yours. I'll play you a few games of ecarte, if you wish, though perhaps that's hardly your game, judging from the way you lost the big pool last night." " Ecarte not my game !" replied Fleischer indignantly. " I lost the pool last night, it is true, but the cards were against me—that was why—'l made no mistake. I will, mein herr, play you, when you will, for what you will, a hundred games of ecarte. and we will see who is the better man, I or you." " Very well," replied Von Rachnitz, "as you will. To-morrow I will play you one hundred games of ecarte for 1000 francs a game." The following night She club was crowded. News of the match had spread abroad among the members, and men who had not been seen in the rooms for months were present. It was evident that the sympathies of the onlookers were with the baron, who, although displaying admirable coolness and all his accustomed skill, nevertheless lost steadily. Hand after hand was played, and Vonßachnitz invariably lost. What was most extraordinary about the contest was that Fleischer's success came to him in spite

of the fact that his play was contrary to all the canons of the game. He played "on authority" when he seemed to have hardly a decent card in his hand, and yet he won, and he " gave cards " when he held a good playing hand, and invariably succeeded in bettering it. Yon Kachnitz's face became a study. He lifted his eyebrows from time to time in a surprised way, and clearly indicated in his features that he was puzzled. Absolutely irrational as was his opponent's play, the cards were invariably against the baron. To many of the most expert players in the club who had crowded about the table, it soon

became evident that Fleischer must have some peculiar knowledge of the cards still left in the pack. Apparently, however, until nine games had been played, all of which had been won by his opponent, the baron remained unsuspiciout of any cheating. The tenth game was now in progress. Fleischer was " four up," and " marked " the king for the third time in succession. At that moment Yon Eachnitz arose from the chair, and, in a voice of assumed calmness, baid : " These cards are marked. I demand an investigation." The next instant he lifted the pack which lay at his side on the table and flung them into his opponent's face, exclaiming, "You are a scoundrel and a swindler." So palpable to many members of the club had been the cheating of M. Fleischer that a disposition was at once manifested by a number of those present to throw him into the street without further ceremony. To this course the baron objected, and, apologising for the scene he had created, begged that a full and

rigid investigation of the charge of cheating be made at once, and before any further violence was offered his opponent. The investigation was made on the spot, and the baron's charge was found to be abundantly substantiated. The cards were found to be of a most ingeniously marked variety, and, as was established, had been smuggled into the club by Fleischer with the connivance of one of the under-servants. It was at this point that the generosity of the baron asserted itself in refusing to accede to the wishes of several of his friends, who desired that the impostor should be turned over to the police. In fact, the baron accorded his late adversary protection from personal violence at the hands of the more hot-headed members of the club, who were anxious to chastise him on the spot, and permitted the swindler to depart unharmed upon his assurance that he would leave Paris at once. When the door had closed upon the discomfitted Fleischer, and these who had witnessed the disgraceful episode returned to the cardroom, the baron begged to be allowed to say a word publicly. "Gentlemen," said he, "I am about to act on an impulse. Whether I am wise in doing so will perhaps be a source of dispute in the minds of my friends; but so irresistibly am I impelled fco the course I am about to take I cannot —I do not dare —to delay announcing my decision. I need not tell you, gentlemen, that this episode has been to me a terrible shock. Never before in my life have I seen cheating at cards, and never again, God willing, will I submit to such an experience. From this moment, and in your presence, I swear solemnly that neither in this club nor elsewhere will I touch a card again for the remainder of my life." There were murmurs of surprise, mingled with slight applause, and it was admitted on all sides that the baron had conducted himself admirably.