Chapter 5

A month previous to this occurrence, in a lawsuit in which he was professionally engaged, Wenk had first noted the extent to which the gambling fever possessed the city. He himself liked the nervous excitement and the appeal to the imagination afforded by the relations between judge, counsel and accused in the course of his calling. In earlier years he had been a regular card-player. He was not a passionate lover of games of chance, but he enjoyed the opportunity of testing the effect of play upon his own self-cont…