He was an ill-looking
person, poorly clad,--what, in common parlance, we should call seedy. He
had not a scrap of beard on his face, and though swarthy and dark as to
his countenance, was light as to his hair, which hung in quantities down
his back. He was dressed from head to foot in a suit of cross-barred,
light-colored tweed, of which he wore the coat buttoned tight over his
chest, as though to hide some deficiency of linen.
The gentleman was altogether a disreputable-looking personage, and they
who had seen him win his money,--Frenchmen and Italians for the most
part,--had declared among themselves that his luck had been most
miraculous. It was observed that he had a companion with him, who stuck
close to his elbow, and it was asserted that this companion continually
urged him to leave the room. But as long as the croupier remained at the
table he remained, and continued to play through the day with almost
invariable luck. It was surmised among the gamblers there that he had
not entered the room with above twenty or thirty pieces in his pocket,
and that he had taken away with him, when the place was closed, six
hundred napoleons. "Look there; he has come again to give it all back to
Madame Blanc, with interest," said a Frenchman to an Italian.
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