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He was an adept at cards, and for aught I know had learned the game as your brother might, at home. But away among strangers at the West that knowledge proved fatal. He was inveigled into playing by some gamblers, staked all his own money, then that committed to his trust. Having lost everything but life, he threw that also down the abyss.
They rose, glaring sullenly at Hazelton. But they didn't know how many more men he might have behind him out there in the dark. Tom Reade now had the six gamblers and the two bootleggers in the room with him. "You're a nice crew, aren't you?" he jeered, gazing at them scornfully. "We're making our living," retorted the leader of the gamblers, with what he meant to be a fine tone of scorn.
"Come, dice," he would say. "Little Phoebe," "Little Joe," "'Way down yonder in the cornfield." Whether these mystic incantations were efficacious or not I could not say, but, at any rate, his luck was great, and he had what gamblers term "nerve." "Shoot the dollar!" "Shoot the two!" "Shoot the four!" "Shoot the eight!" came from his lips as quickly as the dice turned to his advantage.
The old gamblers' eyes seem to have lost this power they have grown fishy; but the eyes of these female novices were a sight. Fanny's, being light gray, gleamed like a panther's whose prey is within leap.
But in a dark hour they determined to cease to be gentlemen, preferring, rather, to join the ranks of thieves. Despising every principle of honor, the gold which employers committed to their care was taken, not to the safety vault, but distributed among gamblers and evil persons.
This success, together with the liquor, which was strong, almost wholly dethroned his reason, and in his mad, drunken excitement he began to stake large sums. The eyes of his companions grew more wolfish than ever, and, after a significant flash toward each other, the gamblers turned fortune against their victim finally.
James was new to Wall Street's green table; and he liked the sensations and felt that his swindle on other gamblers and the public he did not call it by that homely name, though he knew others would if they found him out was moving smoothly. Still very, very deep down his self-confidence was underlaid with quicksand.
It is possible, though not probable, that on any one occasion the majority of the gamblers might stake their money fortuitously on one series of numbers, and if that series did happen to be drawn, then the loss to the Lottery, even with all deductions, would be a heavy one, and the Roman exchequer is by no means in a position to bear a heavy drain.
The gamblers were usually men who did not care to see horses gallop; they chatted about names, and that satisfied them. A clerk, a mechanic, a tradesman, a traveller, a publican asks his friend what he has done over such and such a race, just as he asks after the friend's health.
To make it honorable and glorious. Observe you, I have still honor remaining; I will preserve that, at the price of my blood. "If your people want Peace, let them propose nothing to me which contradicts the delicacy of my sentiments. I am in the convulsions of military operations; I do as the gamblers who are in ill-luck, and obstinately set themselves against Fortune.
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