I knew a Frenchman who used to travel the river playing the wheel,
who made a great deal of money and sent it to France. One night
he opened a $1,000 snap at faro and I was to loan him my tools.
He shuffled his own cards, as he was too smart to use any other;
and I went down on deck and pulled some hairs out of a horse's
tail, and came back and got one of the coppers and fastened a hair
to it. A copper is used to make a bet lose and take the banker's
side. When the copper is off, the bet is open. So I got my partner
to buy a big lot of white checks, so that I could get my small bet
behind them. My checks were $12.50 apiece; he was playing white
checks at 25 cents. We took one corner of the table, side by side.
He placed his checks between the dealer and me; then I would put
my little stack behind his checks, and when the dealer made a turn
he would have to rise from his seat to see if my bet was coppered
or not. If the card lost that we were on, I would let the copper
remain; if it on, I gave the horse hair a little jerk and pulled
the copper off, and we both won. I used to take it off when he
was going to pay the bet, for fear he would get his fingers tangled
in the hair; and in this way we won the bank roll, which made the
Frenchman very sick.