The Capo Lazzarone Himself Has Not Staked On Sixty-Two.
His
face is very long, and his eyes roll wildly.
As it happens to be a favourite number, however, it is pretty well
received, which is not always the case. They are all drawn with
the same ceremony, omitting the blessing. One blessing is enough
for the whole multiplication-table. The only new incident in the
proceedings, is the gradually deepening intensity of the change in
the Cape Lazzarone, who has, evidently, speculated to the very
utmost extent of his means; and who, when he sees the last number,
and finds that it is not one of his, clasps his hands, and raises
his eyes to the ceiling before proclaiming it, as though
remonstrating, in a secret agony, with his patron saint, for having
committed so gross a breach of confidence. I hope the Capo
Lazzarone may not desert him for some other member of the Calendar,
but he seems to threaten it.
Where the winners may be, nobody knows. They certainly are not
present; the general disappointment filling one with pity for the
poor people. They look: when we stand aside, observing them, in
their passage through the court-yard down below: as miserable as
the prisoners in the gaol (it forms a part of the building), who
are peeping down upon them, from between their bars; or, as the
fragments of human heads which are still dangling in chains
outside, in memory of the good old times, when their owners were
strung up there, for the popular edification.
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