It came as a grievous disappointment to all when we found out the
truth, which was that he was the booking agent for a lyceum bureau,
going abroad to sign up some foreign talent for next season's
Chautauquas; and the only gambling he had ever done was on the
chance of whether the Tyrolian Yodelers would draw better than our
esteemed secretary of state - or vice versa.
Meantime the real professionals had established themselves cozily
and comfortably aboard, had rigged the trap and cheese-baited it,
and were waiting for the coming of one of the class that is born
so numerously in this country. If you should be traveling this
year on one of the large trans-Atlantic ships, and there should
come aboard two young well-dressed men and shortly afterward a
middle-aged well-dressed man with a flat nose, who was apparently
a stranger to the first two; and if on the second night out in the
smoking room, while the pool on the next day's run was being
auctioned, one of the younger men, whom we will call Mr. Y, should
appear to be slightly under the influence of malt, vinous or
spirituous liquors - or all three of them at once - and should,
without seeming provocation, insist on picking a quarrel with the
middle-aged stranger, whom we will call Mr. Z; and if further along
in the voyage Mr. Z should introduce himself to you and suggest a
little game of auction bridge for small stakes in order to while
away the tedium of travel; and if it should so fall out that Mr.
Y and his friend Mr. X chanced to be the only available candidates
for a foursome at this fascinating pursuit; and if Mr. Z, being
still hostile toward the sobered and repentant Mr. Y, should decline
to take on either Mr. Y or his friend X as a partner, but chose
you instead; and if on the second or third deal you picked up your
cards and found you had an apparently unbeatable hand and should
bid accordingly; and Mr. X should double you; and Mr. Z, sitting
across from you should come gallantly right back and redouble it;
and Mr. Y, catching the spirit of the moment, should double again
- and so on and so forth until each point, instead of being worth
only a paltry cent or two, had accumulated a value of a good many
cents - if all these things or most of them should befall in the
order enumerated - why, then, if I were you, gentle reader, I would
have a care. And I should leave that game and go somewhere else
to have it too - lest a worse thing befall you as it befell the
guileless young Jerseyman on our ship. After he had paid out a
considerable sum on being beaten - by just one card - upon the playing
of his seemingly unbeatable hand and after the haunting and elusive
odor of eau de rodent had become plainly perceptible all over the
ship, he began, as the saying goes, to smell a rat himself, and
straightway declined to make good his remaining losses, amounting
to quite a tidy amount.
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