It is a singular fact that most of the men who turn out embezzlers,
defaulters, and dishonest clerks, sooner or later lose their money
gambling. Oftentimes it is their love of cards that induces them
to commit the crimes they do. I very well recollect a number of
instances of this kind, and one in particular. I was going up the
river on board the _J. M. White_, when I received a card requesting
me to call at room No. 14. The name was written in a business
hand, so I knew the card was from a gentleman. When I knocked a
voice said, "Come in!" Upon entering, I saw a young man that I
knew very well, who was a bookkeeper in one of the largest cotton
houses in New Orleans. I at once inquired what he was keeping
himself locked up in his room for, and he replied, "I am afraid to
show up in the cabin, but I will tell you all about it before you
get off;" as he knew that I rarely went above Baton Rouge.
Late at night he came out of his state-room so completely disguised
that I did not know him. We took several drinks together, until
he began to feel jolly; then I asked him what he was up to. "Well,"
he replied, "I have been playing the bank and poker for some time,
and have been several thousand dollars loser, and I knew sooner or
later the books would be overhauled, so I collected some money and
skipped. Here I am, and what to do I don't know, nor where I shall
wind up."
"Oh, there are plenty of people in the same box that you are," I
said. "Don't flatter yourself that you are the only one who has
taken money; but perhaps they will now go through the books, and,
discovering the deficit, arrest you."
"Yes, but I don't intend to be caught. I think I will go to Canada.
I am now traveling under an assumed name."
"Are you sure none of the discharging clerks saw you when you came
aboard?"
"I was in this disguise, and came over two boats until I reached
this one, and having a friend with me, he secured a room for two."
"How much did you get away with?"
"Seventy-two hundred dollars."
Which he had collected the day before he left. He proposed going
out and shaking the dice for the drinks. I stuck him again and
again, and at last he proposed to shake for five dollars. That
suited me; and when he proposed to shake for ten dollars, I was
ready.
Then I began to work on him, for I thought I might as well have
that money as anybody, as I knew he would gamble, and never reach
Canada with it. I suggested that we go to my state-room, as the
bar-room was too public a place, and he acceded. In half and hour
we were throwing for a hundred dollars a throw, and when I quit I
was $4,100 ahead, as I knew that it would not do to win it all from
him, so I told him that I was sleepy and tired. We took a drink
at the bar, and he drank so heavily that I was obliged to tell the
porter to see him to his room.
I knew that he must have money to go out of the country, and it
would not do to break him, as I would then have to loan him money.
We were then twenty-five miles from Baton Rouge, and I slept on a
couple of chairs in the cabin, and was awakened by my partner, who
wanted to know if I wanted to sleep forever--as I had retired with
him, but, unable to sleep, had risen. When I told my partner of
the roll I had made, he said that I was the luckiest man he ever
saw; but I told him it was no luck to hold out the dice most of
the time.
When we reached New Orleans the detectives were hunting him high
and low, but they thought he had gone out on one of the trains,
and I never made them any the wiser. When I inquired if I had seen
him, I replied: "Oh, such fellows wouldn't get on a boat where I
was." From that day to this I have never seen him; but I think he
went West, as when he was under the influence of liquor he talked
a great deal of that part of the country.