I should lose, but I must do so like a man, and, above all, without giving the least suspicion that I was a greenhorn.  I even affected to be listening to the music.  The wheel spun again; the game was declared, the rake was busy, but I did not move.  At last the man I had displaced touched me on the arm and whispered, “Better make a straddle and divide your stake this time.”  I did not understand him, but as I saw he was looking at the board, I was obliged to look, too.  I drew back dazed and bewildered!  Where my coin had lain a moment before was a glittering heap of gold.

My stake had doubled, quadrupled, and doubled again.  I did not know how much then—–­I do not know now—­it may have been not more than three or four hundred dollars—­but it dazzled and frightened me.  “Make your game, gentlemen,” said the croupier monotonously.  I thought he looked at me—­indeed, everybody seemed to be looking at me—­and my companion repeated his warning.  But here I must again appeal to the boyish reader in defense of my idiotic obstinacy.  To have taken advice would have shown my youth.  I shook my head—­I could not trust my voice.  I smiled, but with a sinking heart, and let my stake remain.  The ball again sped round the wheel, and stopped.  There was a pause.  The croupier indolently advanced his rake and swept my whole pile with others into the bank!  I had lost it all.  Perhaps it may be difficult for me to explain why I actually felt relieved, and even to some extent triumphant, but I seemed to have asserted my grown-up independence—­possibly at the cost of reducing the number of my meals for days; but what of that!  I was a man!  I wish I could say that it was a lesson to me.  I am afraid it was not.  It was true that I did not gamble again, but then I had no especial desire to—­and there was no temptation.  I am afraid it was an incident without a moral.  Yet it had one touch characteristic of the period which I like to remember.  The man who had spoken to me, I think, suddenly realized, at the moment of my disastrous coup, the fact of my extreme youth.  He moved toward the banker, and leaning over him whispered a few words.  The banker looked up, half impatiently, half kindly—­his hand straying tentatively toward the pile of coin.  I instinctively knew what he meant, and, summoning my determination, met his eyes with all the indifference I could assume, and walked away.

I had at that period a small room at the top of a house owned by a distant relation—­a second or third cousin, I think.  He was a man of independent and original character, had a Ulyssean experience of men and cities, and an old English name of which he was proud.  While in London he had procured from the Heralds’ College his family arms, whose crest was stamped upon a quantity of plate he had brought with him to California.  The plate, together with an exceptionally good cook, which he had also brought, and his own epicurean tastes, he utilized in the usual practical Californian fashion by starting a rather