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care?
thought Willi, I wouldn't have had anything from it anyhow! But then he
won again, and he didn't even find it necessary to change the thousandgulden bill. His luck held, and around nine o'clock, when the game
ended, Willi found himself in possession of over two thousand gulden. A
thousand for Bogner, a thousand for me, he thought. I'll reserve half of it
as a gambling purse for next Sunday. But he didn't feel as exultant as he
ought to have under the circumstances.

    The entire company adjourned to the Stadt Wien for dinner, sat in
the garden beneath a shady oak, and spoke about gambling in general
and in particular about famous card games played for high stakes at the
Jockey Club. "It is, and always will be, a vice," Dr. Flegmann declared in
all seriousness. Everyone laughed, but First Lieutenant Wimmer diverted
himself by taking offense at the remark. What was perhaps a vice among
lawyers, he said, was far from being one among officers. Dr. Flegmann
explained politely that it was possible to have a vice and still be a man of
honor, as countless examples showed: Don Juan, for example, or the Duc
de Richelieu. The consul expressed the opinion that gambling was a vice
only when someone couldn't pay his gambling debts. And in that case, he
added, it was really not merely a vice but a fraud, and a fraud of a particularly cowardly kind at that. There was a moment of silence at this. But
fortunately Herr Elrief appeared at this moment with a flower in his buttonhole and victory in his eyes. "You tore yourself away from the ovations?" asked Greising. "I don't appear in the fourth act," answered the
actor, and carelessly drew off his glove as though rehearsing for an upcoming role as a viscount or marquis. Greising lit a cigar.
    "Better if you didn't smoke!" said Dr. Tugut.
    "But my dear doctor! There's nothing wrong with my throat any
more," answered Greising.
    The consul had ordered a few bottles of Hungarian wine. The company toasted one another. Willi looked at his watch. "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I have to go. The last train leaves at 1o:4o." "Finish your wine," said
the consul. "I'll have my carriage bring you to the station." "Oh. Consul,
thank you, sir, but I can't...."

    "Yes, you can," interrupted First Lieutenant Wimmer.
    "Well, what's going on?" Dr. Tugut asked. "Are we going to continue playing tonight?"
    No one had doubted that the session would be continued after dinner. The same thing happened every Sunday. "But not for long," the consul said.
    "Lucky devils!" thought Willi, and envied them all the prospect of
sitting down at the card table once more to try their luck and possibly win
thousands. The actor Elrief, whose wine invariably went promptly to his
head, conveyed to the consul a greeting from their mutual lady friend
Fraulein Rihoscheck, with an inane and yet impudent expression on his
face. "Why didn't you bring the young lady with you, Mr. Mime?" asked
Greising. "She'll come later to the cafe to watch-if the consul permits,"
said Elrief. The consul did not react.
    Willi finished his wine and stood up. "Till next Sunday!" said Wimmer. "We'll take a little of that weight off of you then!"
    "In that," thought Willi, "you'll be disappointed. It's impossible to
lose if one is cautious."
    "Would you be so kind, Lieutenant, as to send my coachman immediately back from the station to the cafe?" asked the consul. And turning
to the others, he added, "But, gentlemen, we can't play as late, that is,
until as early, as we did last time!"
    Willi once more saluted all around and turned to go. Suddenly, to
his pleasant surprise, he saw that the Kessner family and the lady with
the two daughters were sitting at an adjacent table. Neither the ironical
lawyer nor the elegant young men who had driven up to the villa in a carriage were there. They greeted the lieutenant most amiably, and he remained standing at the table, gay and unaffected-a chic young officer in
comfortable circumstances,