LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2602, 9 August 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A SEN IMSNTAL GAMBLES. Seme three years ago I ran a high-lone t game in a certain place. Oh. yon know will enough where it was, for If I ain't In the wrong you own me now for a stack of chips. It waa a square game, you had better believe it. In all the table drawers in the rcoms there were six-shooter revolvers, and I mostly kept a knife in my boot-leg. Well, It were a thriving game, for I deal', to half the bloods in the town, and often had as many as five lay-outs at a time, with roulette a-going between spalls. One evering a young chap, with a curious stare In hla face, strolled in, and I concluded right oil that he was green, I have an affaotion for green msn. 01 how I sympithissa with them. He was fslr-halred, had blue eyes aad milk teeth, and jest as innocent-looking as a sucking pig. I knowed he was my meat — tenderer nor chicken -the minute I sot eyas on him. Just ono<f them lovely creatures as had never put foot in a gambling saloon before. Pity him ? Much. If you ever did want to see a heart just slopping over with sympathy’ I wish you could get a sight of mine. There never was a sporting man that hadn’t a soft heart, mealier nor a biled potato. It’s a constant weakness that mostly spoils their business. When I get flush yon just call on me and write me up some yarn for the papers, about these ere benevolent, soft-hearted Spo.- B something that will make the women cry, and you will be good for a ten dollar bill. The papers can’t publish too many of them. Well, about this here young fellow, pards of mire had roped him in. Bless you, we had spotted him months before. We made up a little game, and some friends played agin me —me a holding the box—and the way they squeezed me was awful. Pretty soon they got him to take a hand just for fun, ha going shares, a chipping in, and wo let him mske lOOdol. or 150d01.—1 diaremember how much. We

kcowed he was well sot His old mammy had oaved in six months before, and he was good for 40,000d01. Now we wasn't agoing to let any other party get him, for there was a lot of fellows a ronning an opposition to us in the town. Wo had kind of started small, and the bulk wasn’t worth more than SOOdol. when we first worked her, and that there young fellow had cist us ai much as 150dol. in tolling of him in, before we got him safe. Some particular friends of mine hived on him, and wa stood the raoke 1 -, I no sooner looked him over than I made up my mind that our money wasn’t wasted. He wasn’t a growler, but just an easy-going kind of chap, that took things si they come. We didn’t press him. If it took the whole season to play it on him, wa didn’t mind. Some nights he wonld drop a thousand then the next night we would let him piok up a hundred or so. Kind of kept him in heart, yon know. When he begun he wasn’t much in liquor, but we got him to take his tod pretty brisk after a while. Good Honor ? Ton had bettor believe it. Old Crow, copper distUler, all the time. What’s the use of hocnssln’ stuff? It’s never done now, much, excepting by burglars. The nigger was regularly ordered to give him a drink when any of us winked, and we kept a-wlnking. A man wants sustaining, you know, and we was a blessed sight too tendtr hearted to let him feel his losses. Many and many a time me and my pards have put him to sleep In the back room, with money In his pocket which we might have took, and bo never would have known nothing; but a sporting man as respects hlaeelf is above that kind of game. Well, he kept right straight on like a good one, and the more he lost the worse was his judgment. It was so easy a thing that there really was no fun in it. When spring time came the bank was 30 OOOdol. ahead, and the fool hadn’t over lOOdol. to his name. We had been mighty polite and affable like to him so far, but when a fellow has only lOOdol. and a watch and a scarf pin, and will keep a banging around a game, he ain’t no ase. He kept on a-oomlng though, and I just knew that if we didn’t freeze him out he would turn out to be a regular saloon loafer. One night he came in and hung off for a while, and we thought he hadn,t a red, but by-and-by he shows SOOdol. I was kind of curions to know where the money had come from. We laid low fur him, and just sucked In his money as easy as could be. Next day we found out that he had kept back some of his money to build a marble monument over bis mother, and had bad the plans mide. But I rather guess the tombstone cutters di'n't divvy any of that money mneb, and the old woman ain't get to headstone yet to speak of as I knows of. What’s the use ef such things anyhow ? Then he didn’t turn up for a week, and we thought wj was shut of him.

One howling bad eight, when the room was fall, and there was no place at a table, he ocinej in and edges np to where I was adealing. lie had pawned his overcoat quits likely, for he was a-sbivering from the rain. He draws a few quarters cut of hia pocket, but I shut down on him, telling him it was a dollar game, and that there was no rodTU for him. He pulls out hia watch and offers it for 75 dollars’ worth of checks. It might have been worth pretty [nearly that for the old gold in the case, but we wasn’t pawnbrokers, so we let him have eighty dollars on It He took the chips greedily, and two rousing drinks, and played like & fool. What a baby he was ! I kept a sloshing over with sympathy for him, of course , but If it was hij daddy’s tioker you know, and If the see will keep turning up agin a family timepiece, what's the use of blubbering over It. It ain’t plucky. Next time be hauls out of his shirt a diamond pin and dickers that for a pile of chips. We have to keep our wits about ns, you know. It was a fairish atone, and even If we had lost the chips we wouldn’t have been much the worse for it. b e would keep on coppering the queen j we knowed his game, and we worked the lady on him, and that there p’.n was oars. I wasn’t going to let that pin go the rounds, so I stuck it in my scarf between the deals, and, as I sot in there (I was wearing a blue scarf that night), I sort of smiled on him, a bnlging out of my chest, so that he could see it, aud that riled him. 4 Now you are done for,’ thinks I, ‘and to-morrow 1 will give orders that you ain’t to be let in no more.’

I see, though, a gold ring on his finger. It wasn’t much in the way of jewellery, a thin, nssd-np, battered kind of thing—if it was 18-carat maybe worth five dollars. I kind of fancied that ring. If hia business was to be done it had to be done clean, I knowed he was shorn, and a shorn man hasn’t no use for gold rings. He was a-fooling with it, a pulling it off and aputting it on. Presently it came oil his finger and rolled on the baize. He was hind of shamed to offer it.

* Give yon 4dol. chips for it,’ says I; ‘ your gl:l will give you another.’ •It’s my poor old mother’s wedding ring,’ eays he, ‘and I dare not.’

* Bring you luck,’ says 1; ‘ put up the old woman’s finery—if it’s gold,’ He kind of hesitated, bat Jim—that’s the nigger—gave him a staving drink, and he chucked over the ring. Mabbe it was the liquor that gave him the hiccups, or It might have been a sob, but he took the chips anyway. I had the ring and felt it. It was so mnch worn that I knew we had given more chips for it than It was worth, but, as I have been telling you, I always had a heart bigger nor an ox. 1 held the box, and three cards did his business. Ho hadn’t sense enough to divide hia little pile. No spoony fellows ought to try to match themselves with bloods. I got that there ring, and as nice a piece of dry goods as ever stept wears thao there ring to day, providing she hasn’t pawned it.

Ho never said a word, but kind of tottered off—it was the drink I suppose —and went into the back room and we kept on with the game. Wo was having a staving run of luck that night, and things was a working sweet, when all of a sadden we heard a pistol go off In the back room. I didn’t jump. We ain’t nervous, and a little popping ain’t of much consequence. It wasn’t the first time neither I had heard a pistol go off in that there back room.

I felt kind of sure it was all up with Greeny, bat his watch was in the drawer, his pin in my scarf, and his ring on my finger. There was a lot of big betting on the six last cards, just then fours and fives and nines, and the chances was agin ns, and the players was just wild, I dealt ’em, and we swooped in the whole keboocile. I am ocol If I am anything. Then some of the ropers came a rusting in from the back room, and one of ’em says.

* Where the did he get the plate* from ?’

‘Rummaging in the old table drawer.’ says my pard, a-winking to me. ‘and It went off without his knowing it. Ain’t hurt to speak of,’ ‘ Gents,’ says I, ‘don’t let a little trifle of this here kind disturb this sociable gathering. Jim, liqour all around. Now shut them doors, lock ’em, and fetch me the keys, for not a soul of you gets out before morning, and by that time it will be ail right.’ The party was game, though they held back for a little while, not knowing what was exactly up. ‘He’s done for, I suppose!’ I said to my partner, in a whisper. ‘A stiff,’ says he. ‘ Oarpot spoilt - wall paper splashed ?’ I asked. ' Juat the worst kind.'

‘Matter of 75d01. It’s my fault—charge it to me. He ought to have been fired out at once ; but 1 always was so sentimental.’ 1 It’s your only failing ’ said my pard. * Now, ’ says I to the company, * a new deal, gents, on this ’ere festive occasion. Supper at twelve o’clock. Make your bets.’ What a night wo had of It. That ’ere little incident in the next room had quite pat an edge on the thing. The liqnor those fellows drank would have floated ’em. Drunk myself ? Not much. Never tastes a drop when I handle the kurds. It was one of the best nights for business I ever knew —better than 10,000 dollars for us. We skinned that crowd.

It was brought in as an accident. Maybe It was—'maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t pay his funeral cxp-nses, If there had been a man that sold flowers in the place, mebbe the the Bank” would have sent him some camelias and things for I was always sentimental and soft ; but then I had to pay for a new carpet. I have had streaks of good and bad lack ever since, but 1 do wish 1 could strike just such another nice young fellow like Greeny. I shouldn’t care if ons turned up like him once a month. I would treat ’em all just as handsome. But say, don’t forget to come round and see me, for I do want yon to write up something gashing about gamblers and lottery policy people, and how a faro dealer got plons all at once, and gave np the pasteboards, and took to teaching Sunday school. Yank in remorse and rope in the sentiment. Call the thing “ Hia Last Beal.” I’ll give you the p’ints. It s a kind of reading takes. It sounds so tine —so like a batcher afainting over a lamb! So long.