A Nice Little Game.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3516, 2 April 1880, Page 2

A Nice Little Game.

"Talking of cards," said a Thames pioneer the other day, I will tell you an incident that came under my notice while I was on the Coast. Charlie, that was my mate you know, and myself made about £200 each at, Charleston diggings, and we went to Hokitika to hare a look round before going north. Hokitika was full of hotels, casinos, and gambling hells in those days, and you could see more " life " there than in Dunedin during the gold fever. Hokitika society was composed of miners and the harpies who lived on them, and the latter rery quiokly found out the ms,n with money, and then as a matter of course unless he kept his eyes skinned they were bound .to take advantage of him. When in the Steam Faeket Hotel three noted blacklegs—one of them is. in Auckland now—came up to Charlie and I and made themselves familiar. I dropped to them at once, bat my mate uncautiously pulled out a great roll of notes and " shouted." I noticed the eyes of the scoundrels gleam, and they exchanged meaning glances. We got yarning and then one of the gamblers suggested a game at cards. This suited Charlie to a; tee and a little game at "poker" was decided on. "£1 chip and pass the buck" suggested Charlie, and it was agreed. I would not play, but sat watching the game, and was surprised at the way Charlie won. He was speedily in £IC3. Well, the game went on, and once leaking over my mate's shoulder, I. noticed he had four aoei in his hand. Well, he won a couple of hundred pounds in that pool. A few hands afterwards he "had four kings. It struck me as very, strange that two such good hands shonld come out one after the other,* and I came to the conclusion that they were playing with Charlie like cats with a mouse. My mate was no fool, though, and he saw through their little game, There were four aces out against him, but ho only .lost £20 as he called, the black-leg up. I noticed the villains looking at each other, and one of them slipped his hand into hia bosom. At this juncture Charlie rose and said to me "Bill, look at my hand for a minute while I go into the bar. He left £20 on the table. The hands were d^alt out, and Charlie's was a good one, so I backed it for all the money he had left. The others still kept rising, so I asked them to wait till Charlie returned. Well we waited a bit, but no Charlie came. Presently one of them rose and went out in quest of him but couid find him nowhere. The blacklegs then rightly suspected that my clever mate had sloped, and the biters were bitten. With criea of rage and awful imprecations they started in pursuit, leaving the pool of £90 on the table, which I quickly appropriated and left the house. -Charlie get aboard the s.s. Kennedy, and when I went aboard I found him there, and we went up to Nelson together. I subse* quently learned that the three sharpers hunted for us high and low, and would most certainly have killed Charlie if they could have laid their hands on him.