After the supper, which was magnificent, Philippe, by that time drunk and confident, went back to his play at midnight.

In defiance of the rule he had imposed upon himself, he played for an hour and doubled his fortune.

The bankers, from whom, by his system of playing, he had extracted one hundred and fifty thousand francs, looked at him with curiosity.
"Will he go away now, or will he stay ?" they said to each other by a glance.

"If he stays he is lost." Philippe thought he had struck a vein of luck, and stayed.

Towards three in the morning, the hundred and fifty thousand francs had gone back to the bank.