The absence of
windows was made up for, as I learned later, by a ventilating
device so perfect that, although everyone was smoking, a most
fastidious person could scarcely have been offended by the odour
of tobacco.
Of course I did not notice all this at first. What I did notice,
however, was a faro-layout and a hazard-board, but as no one was
playing at either, my eye quickly travelled to a roulette-table
which stretched along the middle of the room. Some ten or a dozen
men in evening clothes were gathered watching with intent faces
the spinning wheel. There was no money on the table, nothing but
piles of chips of various denominations. Another thing that
surprised me as I looked was that the tense look on the faces of
the players was anything but the feverish, haggard gaze I had
expected. In fact, they were sleek, well-fed, typical prosperous
New-Yorkers rather inclined to the noticeable in dress and
carrying their avoirdupois as if life was an easy game with them.
Most of them evidently belonged to the financial and society
classes. There were no tragedies; the tragedies were
elsewhere--in their offices, homes, in the courts, anywhere, but
not here at the club. Here all was life, light, and laughter.
For the benefit of those not acquainted with the roulette-wheel--
and I may as well confess that most of my own knowledge was
gained in that one crowded evening--I may say that it consists,
briefly, of a wooden disc very nicely balanced and turning in the
centre of a cavity set into a table like a circular wash-basin,
with an outer rim turned slightly inward.
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