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"Well, I'll bet you five to three," proposed the Honorable George. "Done!" "Done!" Robinson put in a hasty word: "And what is to become of Thimble-rig Jem, sir?" These words, addressed to Mr. Lascelles, produced a singular effect.
Some of this unique body looked as if they had seen hard usage and lean pay. Others were grey with thinking, instead of moving. Be not surprised either when I say that the gravity of their countenance left no visible room for anything else. Hard at it were they, straining their antiquated imaginations over a secret game of thimble-rig, which seemed of momentous importance.
Atop a portable pair of steps a pale, well-dressed young man was playing thimble-rig on his knees with a gilt pea. From an upturned keg a preacher was exhorting. And occasionally, through gaps between the shacks, she caught glimpses of blue water; or of ships at anchor; or, more often, of the tall pile drivers whose hammers went steadily up and down.
Robinson continued, addressing him with marked respect, "What I mean, sir, is that there is a government reward of two hundred pounds for Thimble-rig Jem, and the police wouldn't like to be drawn away from two hundred pounds after a poor fellow like him you saw on Monday night, one that is only suspected and no reward offered. Now Jem is a notorious culprit." "Who is this Jem, my man?
The druggist carries the empty graduate to the water sink. He rinses it. His heart beats with the greatest joy it has ever known. He returns the graduate to the prescription counter. "It is a good scheme, Corkey." "You bet it is. Chalmers, just fill that thimble-rig once more. It don't hold three fingers, nohow. Hurry, for I got to go to the north pier right off.
These public tombolas are like too many thimble-rig tables, ostensibly started for charitable objects, and it is popularly whispered that the Roman nobility and heads of the Church purchase vast numbers of these tickets, and never fill them up; but then again, they are not large enough for shaving, and are too small for curl-papers; besides, six hundred and fifty scudi! Whew!
The devotion and energy with which all these pastimes were pursued, struck me as much as anything. These people have been playing thimble-rig and casino; that story- teller has been shouting his tale of Antar for forty years; and they are just as happy with this amusement now as when first they tried it.
And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient form, as a declaration that the real meaning of some mysterious transaction was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at thimble-rig; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas come in England. "She pirryed adree the bar lellin ruzhers."
He was educated in the Fleet, and he has not heard the end of Newgate yet, take my word for it. He'll muddle away the Begum's fortune at thimble-rig, be caught picking pockets, and finish on board the hulks."
Hatcher's bank "got broke" soon after, and a series of ill-fortune at length reduced him to the condition of a race-course thimble-rig, and small sharper in general. The pork-merchant I met many years afterward, as a successful monte dealer in the "Halls of the Montezumas."
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