And yet, forsooth, a gallant man, who sits him down before the baize and challenges all comers, his money against theirs, his fortune against theirs, is proscribed by your modern moral world! It is a conspiracy of the middle-class against gentlemen.

It is only the shopkeeper cant which is to go down nowadays.

I say that play was an institution of chivalry.

It has been wrecked along with other privileges of men of birth.

When Seingalt engaged a man for six-and-thirty hours without leaving the table, do you think he showed no courage?
How have we had the best blood and the brightest eyes too, of Europe throbbing round the table, as I and my uncle have held the cards and the bank against some terrible player, who was matching some thousands out of his millions against our all, which was there on the baize! When we engaged that daring Alexis Kossloffsky, and won seven thousand louis on a single coup, had we lost we should have been beggars the next day; when _he_ lost, he was only a village and a few hundred serfs in pawn the worse.