THE BLACK BEAN.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 164, 14 December 1874, Page 3

THE BLACK BEAN.

{New York Paper.) I might as well tell it out now and be done with it. I’ll tell it as well as I can. You see, the boys one day got hold of a chap, out in St Louis, who had had a fearful string of luck. He was just the luckiest cuss you ever heard of. If he looked at a card, it turned up for him. He was too much for them. So one night they put up a job to give him away, for sure. He had just been nigh breaking a game, and had his pockets full of rocks. The boys couldn’t stand it. ‘You’re too lucky for this world,’ they said ; ‘ and we’ll see how far it goes. ’ So they grabbed this unfortunate gobblerup of the stakes, and conducted him with not much ceremony, but with remarkable celerity, down to one of the river piers. Nor halted the festive gambs until they had cornered the unlucky victim upon the end of the dock. With the victim the boys had brought a bag containing a bushel of beans. ‘ Now, then, we’ll let you try luck on a new deal,’said one of the gambs, taking from his pocket one black bean. ‘You’ve got to give us a chance now. Do you see this bean ?’ The -wretched captive feebly acknowledged that he did observe the black bean. ‘ Now, then, we’re going to bounce you overboard. But we’ll give you a chance. I’ll put this black bean into this bag of white beans and shake ’em up. Then, if you can pull out this black beau at the first dive we’ll let up on you.” Well, strike me if the infernal cuss didn’t jam his fist down into that bushel of beans and pull out the black bean at the first dip. Well, that kinder got the boys. Then an old gamb, who never had had any luck at anything except losing, said—- ‘ Damme ! get two bushels of beans, and give the cuss another show for his life.’ Then they got another bushel of beans into the bag, ■ and mixed the black beau among ’em. ‘Now, then, dive for it, and if you find it we’ll let up on you sure.’ And then to make certain of getting fair play, they tied a handkerchief about his eyes so he couldn’t ?ee. Into that two bushels of white beans he thrust his arm, and out it came. In his fingers he again held up that black bean. ‘ Thuuder’u lightuin ! was all the boys could say. The old gamb said—- ‘ Take that empty bar’l there, git another basket of beans, put the three bushels into the bar’l, an’ give him another chance. If he finds that black one, why, he’s too lucky for us, that’s all.’ No sooner said than done. The beans, with the extra bushel, were emptied into the barrel. They then made their victim of good luck jerk one of his boots and pull off his stocking. They then tied that slocking around his face

so that the bottom of it laid against his nose and completely covered it. They also put an extra bandage about his eyes. After this was fixed they crammed the black beau into the middle of the barrel of beans. ‘ Now, then, nobody’s in your way. If you find that bean we’ll give it up and let you slide, you infernal sucker!’ In went his hand into the depths of that barrel, and out it came again. Was this sort of luck to be endured?—for the third time he held up that same infernal black bean ! He’d hit it the first pop ! May I fall dead if he did’nt! Ton sec, the boys were human, and his devil’s luck was too much for them. ‘ You’re too lucky to live,’ they said ; ‘and it aint no use for us to try anything so long as you’re round. A man that’ll draw a black bean in that style isn’t fit to play penny poker with a sick Contraband.’ Then they grabbed him, neck and heels, and chucked him off the dock into the water. They heard his awful yell as he splashed in, and (hen left. Well, about a year after that, when them gambs thought the lucky chap had all gone long ago into fish-meat, one day there came among ’em a big-whiskered chap, with a singular • looking breastpin in his shirtfront, who cleaned the whole crowd out — busted ’em. That big-whiskered fellow was the lucky man, and his breastpin was a black bean set around with diamonds. I tell you, garabs looked wild. But they didn’t trouble him again. His luck was too much for ’em.