| Your
question, Russell, does remind me of a true story a dear friend shared with me
that happened in a casino in Monaco. An American consultant working out of Milano,
stopped off for an evening of fun while en route to Paris to pick up his wife-of
French extraction-who'd been visiting the family farm up around Charleville. He
staked out a roulette table where a gorgeous brunette, very nearly into a low-cut
gown, had done well early on, but had been on a slide for the last several spins
and clearly didn't have enough moolah left to play again. She stamped a pretty
little foot and began to leave with the bravura look that needs no translation:
"OK, you bastards! Just you wait!" She
and my acquaintance had been playing on opposite sides of the table and were aware
of each other but hadn't actually spoken until she now stormed past him.
He
had been quite lucky and now, like the generous philosopher he was, he tapped
her on the elbow and offered to stake her for another round or so.
"And
why would monsieur want to do that?"
"Blind faith, cash overload,
not to mention an eye for the chic and decorative."
"Too kind, a
gallant gesture .... and collateral ?"
"Your underwear-at so much
per item."
"Oh, mon Dieu, jamais, jamais; I'm not that kind ... etc.,
etc."
And so it was arranged that in exchange for his loan, she would
visit the ladies' room and return leaving in his hands whatever she wore under
the gown-at 30,000 francs per item. As
it turned out, bit by bit, she lost the 90,000 francs and along about dawn withdrew
to her hotel. The consultant, a man of wide-ranging concepts, well above dreary
details, was left with three items of intimate apparel in his pockets.
Typically,
he failed to dispose of the evidence, and would his wife ever believe how he got
them out of a pure humanitarian gesture?
Of course not.
 Good
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