I was playing euchre one night on the old _Vicksburg_, and had a
good sucker down in the game, and the clerk was watching us very
close; so after I gave the sucker a good hand, and he wanted to
bet on poker, I whispered and said, "If we make a bet we must put
the money in a hat, and we must not speak about betting louder than
in a whisper." We had up $900, when I saw the clerk coming; I
grabbed the hat and threw down my hand. When the clerk got there
the bird had flown. He told the Captain it was all foolishness in
trying to keep those gamblers from winning a sucker's money, for
they could make a sucker whisper or do anything they wanted him to
do; so that made two good men out of the Captain and the clerk,
for they never interfered with our innocent games after that, and
we made many a dollar on that boat. She was a nice steamboat to
travel on in those days; but they got to building them so much
finer that a sucker was afraid to go on board one of them, thinking
that they would charge him more money.