4
The monster has other strange habits. We see, for instance, that it is not uncommon for a number to come up twice in succession; and it is undeniable that, in each day’s play, two or three numbers are obviously favoured, so much so that we may hurl out a challenge to logic and declare that the more frequently a number occurs the more chances it has of reappearing. This seems to conflict with the law of equilibrium which we have remarked; but it must be observed that this equilibrium will be recovered later, that by the end of the week the difference will no longer be very great and that they will almost disappear when the month is over. The equilibrium is more slowly restored because we must multiply the number of series by eighteen and a half to reach the proportions of the even chances.
Players note yet another law which, for that matter, is but a corollary of the former habit, but which has something curiously human about it: the chances which lag behind show a greater eagerness to regain their lost ground at the moment that follows more or less closely upon a halt, as though they had recovered their breath after a brief rest on the landing of a staircase.
Let us add at once that it is wise to distrust these fluctuating habits and these gropings after laws. For instance, red has been known to beat black by seventy per cent. in the course of a day’s play. Black, on the other hand, as people still remember at Monte Carlo, one day came up twenty-nine times in succession and the second dozen twenty-eight times without a break. Chance has not our nerves; it is not, like us, impatient to make good its losses or to carry off its gains. It takes its time, awaits its hour and does not trouble to keep step with our ways of life.