When at Toeplitz the Duke of Courland brought fourteen lacqueys, each with four bags of florins, and challenged our bank to play against the sealed bags, what did we ask?
'Sir,' said we, 'we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, or two hundred thousand at three months.

If your highness's bags do not contain more than eighty thousand we will meet you.' And we did; and after eleven hours' play, in which our bank was at one time reduced to two hundred and three ducats, we won seventeen thousand florins of him.

Is _this_ not something like boldness?
Does this profession not require skill, and perseverance, and bravery?
Four crowned heads looked on at the game, and an imperial princess, when I turned up the ace of hearts and made Paroli, burst into tears.

No man on the European Continent held a higher position than Redmond Barry then; and when the Duke of Courland lost he was pleased to say that we had won nobly.

And so we had, and spent nobly what we won." This is very grand, and is put as an eloquent man would put it who really wished to defend gambling.
The rascal, of course, comes to a miserable end, but the tone of the narrative is continued throughout.