Midnight
In this way the band might lose two or three thousand rubles , but such a loss had no great importance , and was soon made up when some fat `` pigeon '' appeared . It sometimes happened that this wily scheme of honest play went on for five or six weeks in succession , so that the small fry , winning the band 's money , remained entirely convinced that it was playing in an honorable and respectable private house , and very naturally spread abroad the fame of it throughout the whole city . But when the fat pigeon at last appeared , the band put forth all its forces , all the wiles of the black art , and in a few hours made up for the generous losses of a month of honorable and irreproachable play on the green cloth . Midnight was approaching . The baroness 's rooms were brilliantly lit up , but , thanks to the thick curtains which covered the windows , the lights could not be seen from the street , though several carriages were drawn up along the sidewalk . Opening into the elegant drawing-room was a not less elegant card room , appreciatively nicknamed the Inferno by the band . In it stood a large table with a green cloth , on which lay a heap of bank notes and two little piles of gold , before which sat Sergei Antonovitch Kovroff , presiding over the bank with the composure of a true gentleman .