and then he spoke.
“‘I’ll put up five thousand more, if you want to play for it,’ he said.
“‘But how can I? I tell you I haven’t any more money,’ said Gilmartin,
looking puzzled.
“‘If you will give me your promise to go as far south as St. Louis
for sixty days, and tell nobody that you are going, I’ll take that
as an equivalent for the five thousand,’ said Martin very slowly and
distinctly.
“Gilmartin flushed. He knew that everybody in the room understood the
proposition. He was asked to sell out his honor, for going away in that
fashion meant betraying his employer and running away with his money,
as well as leaving him in the lurch. I expected to hear an indignant
outburst of invective and abuse, and indeed the man was about to speak
when another thought seemed to strike him, and he grew deathly white.
The gambling fever had seized him, and he looked at his cards again.
“While he was hesitating Martin spoke again, and the devilish coolness
of his speech made me shudder.
“‘I need not say anything to impress on the minds of all the gentlemen
present that this is a private party,’ he said, ‘and that nothing
which happens here can be told outside while it can by any possibility
work injury to any one concerned.’
“Gilmartin looked round at every man in the room, and seeing by our
faces that we all recognized the obligation, he seemed nerved, as
Martin had meant that he should be, to take the risk.
“‘I’ll take the bet,’ he said at length, and he spoke desperately. ‘But
God help you, Martin, if you win it. I don’t believe you can, for I’ve
got almost a sure hand.’
“‘If you lose,’ said Martin, ‘you have no cause of quarrel with me. I
am not forcing you to play. But if you mean enmity, all right. I’ll
gamble your friendship, too, along with the rest, if you like.’
“‘So be it,’ said Gilmartin. ‘It’s a call, then. If you lose you pay me
five thousand. If I lose I leave.’
“‘Correct,’ said Martin, and the hands were shown.
“Martin had drawn to kings and caught the other two. Gilmartin had
drawn to three queens and drawn the other.
“His face as he left the room was such a picture as I hope never to
see again, but he kept to his bargain. At least, I imagine he did, for
he was not seen again in that part of the country while I was there. I
never spoke to Martin again, but his friend was elected Senator at the
next session of the Legislature by a majority of two votes. Both men
are dead, or I would not have told the story.”
The Bill Went Through
_THE USE THE LOBBY USED TO MAKE OF POKER_
“It is no news to the average newspaper reader,” said the gray-haired
young-looking man, “that there has been a vast deal of heavy gambling
done in Washington since the capital of the nation was established
in that city. Stories without number have been told and retold about
famous statesmen who have bucked the tiger in this and that resort,
whichever one happened to be famous in its day, and who have won and
lost enormous sums as coolly as Englishmen of equally high rank are
said to have done when Pitt and Fox played in the London clubs. For
one, I have little doubt that many of these stories are substantially
true, though most of them are probably embroidered around the edges.
Men who make national politics the game of their lives learn to love
excitement, and next to politics, gambling is about the most exciting
thing out. Some people even put it ahead of politics.
“I am the more inclined to believe these stories, too, because I
remember a good deal about what happened in a certain poker club in
that city a little while before the Crédit Mobilier scandal. I was a
youngster then, but I had some reputation as a cool-headed player, and
I was fond of the game, so it was not strange that after I had been
properly introduced and had sat in once or twice, I got in the way of
dropping in frequently, and finally of spending most of my evenings
in this particular club-house until after Congress adjourned and the
season was over. My business there was accomplished at about the same
time, and I left the city, not to return for several years.
“The place was a modest-looking house, just off Pennsylvania Avenue.
It had been designed for a private residence, and was used as such by
the proprietor, for, though it was called a club, it was nothing more
than a private gambling-house. No one could get admittance without a
personal introduction by some one whom the proprietor knew and trusted,
but once inside, a visitor was made to feel as if he almost owned the
place.
“I never saw anything but poker played in the house, but the game
was sometimes for tremendous stakes. Everybody seemed to have almost
unlimited money who came there to play, for money was plentiful in
Washington that year, and a thousand-dollar bet was no more an occasion
for surprise than one of fifty dollars, though a five- or ten-dollar
limit game was common enough, too. You could play a modest game if
you liked, for there were several tables going every night, but if you
preferred, you could generally get into a table stakes game and flash
any sort of a roll you saw fit. I never saw a professional gambler in
the house, excepting the proprietor. He was one, but he never played in
his own place, and so far as I know, there was never a suspicion of a
crooked play in any of the games that I saw.
“And as to the men who played? Oh! well, it would do no good to name
names. Some were men whom nothing could injure in reputation. Some are
dead. Others are out of politics. And not a few would be sorry indeed
to be mentioned in connection with high play at a time when their
ostensible income was not sufficient to warrant it. It was a season,
however, in which no man prominent in official circles was obliged to
be without money, provided he could be induced to accept it. It is
enough to say that one of the unwritten rules of the ‘club’--it had no
written ones--was that any man’s I. O. U. was good, but that it must be
taken up within forty-eight hours. And I never heard of an infraction
of the rule.
“In one or two cases I would have been glad to hear that the man giving
his paper thus, had had the nerve to repudiate it and quit the game.
One Congressman in particular I remember who might have been a man of
distinction according to all indications, if he had been willing to
shoulder the odium of an unpaid ‘debt of honor’ instead of lending
himself to the lobby and accepting money for his vote. How do I know
it? How does a man know anything he doesn’t actually see? I knew the
circumstances leading up to his ruin well enough.
“What I did see was the way the lobby tried him night after night,
for it was an open secret that this particular poker club was one of
the channels through which the crack lobbyists of the season reached
their men. A good many games were played to lose, in the big parlor,
and more, I reckon, in some of the small rooms, but the man who won in
such a game was always a man who was wanted for something. Of course,
when it came to handing over the cold cash as a specified payment for
a particular service, it was done in private, but different men have
to be approached in different ways, and poker affords some peculiar
opportunities.
“This Congressman--call him Smith for short--was particularly wanted
in one scheme that hung fire for a long time in the committee-room. He
was a member of the committee, and for local reasons connected with his
home district could have decided the matter either way, but being a
conscientious fellow, he had held it up in a way that exasperated the
lobby greatly. He had been approached in various ways, but had proved
obdurate, and not until he had been introduced at the club did there
seem to be any chance of winning him.
“Even then it was not easy, for he refused at first to play for any
considerable money, but he was fond of the game and it undid him at the
last. He was led on by degrees--the finesse and astuteness of a really
gifted lobbyist is something almost diabolical--until, being a fairly
skilful player, he found himself encouraged to plunge. Then the real
game began.
“At first he was allowed to win. I say allowed, because the men
against him were far better players than he, though they did not let
him suspect it. One night he won so heavily that at the conclusion
of the game he had Jones’s I. O. U. for over seven thousand dollars.
Jones was the man the lobby had put against him, and what he had to
do was to meet Smith privately next day and hand him the money, and
at the same time urge the passage of the bill they wanted. Of course
the money could not be considered in any sense a bribe, but Smith, in
taking it, could not possibly refuse conversation, and would, it was
thought, be inclined to listen favorably to a man who lost money to him
as gracefully as Jones did. He couldn’t be expected to know, and as a
fact, he did not know, how easy it was for Jones to lose gracefully,
since the money was furnished to him for the purpose.
“It was the most delicate sort of diplomacy, but it failed completely.
Smith was gentleman enough to feel the temptation, and man enough to
withstand it. The loss of the money was not considered for a moment by
the lobby. They had money to burn. But the failure to get Smith was
important, so other tactics were employed.
“There was no necessity for asking him to give Jones his revenge at
the game, for he was by this time in the fever of play, and he was
at the club every night, looking for the opportunity that somebody
was always ready to give him. It did seem almost pitiful to see a man
of his talents and character fluttering like a big fool moth around a
flame that was almost certain to destroy him, but it didn’t seem to be
anybody’s business to tell him what he ought to have known for himself.
At any rate, nobody made it his business. I, for one, considered
that it was the part of wisdom to say nothing. It’s a good safe rule
generally, and I was too young a man to play mentor to one who had
reached his rank.
“Nothing was done hastily. The lobby never makes mistakes of that
sort. Smith was allowed to play along for perhaps a week before Jones
was put at him again. I don’t know exactly, but I think a part of the
calculation was to wait till his luck should turn, for he had been
winning before he made his big stake from Jones, and he continued to
win for several nights, though he got no very important money after
that.
“Luck does change, though, and in a week he was losing, not heavily,
but enough to whet his desire, and it was noticeable that he grew
more and more eager for high play. The time had come for the decisive
stroke, and Jones, of course, was on hand at the proper time to deliver
it.
“There were only four players in the game that night, and it was
played in the big parlor. The lobby never made the mistake of seeking
privacy unnecessarily, and Smith, though he was infatuated with the
game, was the sort of man to take alarm quickly at anything that looked
suspicious. So it happened that I was one of the lookers-on at a
memorable contest.
“Smith didn’t know it, but there were three against him that night,
although one of them was a fellow-Congressman who was not known to be
interested in the scheme, and another was a Westerner, who had only
been introduced at the club two or three nights before, and had only
played there once. The fourth man, of course, was Jones.
“The play went on for half an hour before anything serious happened.
Occasionally there would be some pretty big bets, but they all won and
lost so nearly even that no one was much ahead. Then to an outsider it
became evident that each of the other three was playing for Smith’s
money, although Smith himself did not, I believe, suspect anything
of the sort. As I said, the play was straight enough, but three
first-class players can bring any ordinary player to grief easily
enough in a four-handed game without any crooked manipulation of the
cards, if they work in concert, and Smith was soon losing heavily.
“They knew the size of his pile pretty accurately, for they had kept
tabs on him closely ever since he began playing, and there wasn’t a
detail of his outside business that hadn’t been studied carefully
beforehand. So when he had been coaxed along to a ten-dollar ante, with
occasional bets of as much as five hundred, they knew that they could
reach his uttermost limit easily enough, for he couldn’t have raised
much over twelve thousand dollars in cash to save his life, without
getting outside help somewhere. Twelve thousand dollars isn’t much of a
wad to sit in a game with, if there is unlimited money against you, and
the betting runs up into the hundreds, so Smith was on pretty thin ice
all the time, though he didn’t realize it until it was too late.
“He had four or five thousand with him in money, but when that was gone
the rule of the place made it fatally easy for him to go on, and I
really believe that he lost his head as the play went on, and he gave
check after check in payment for more chips. The proprietor understood
well enough what was going on, and he took the checks with perfect
readiness, knowing that he would be protected. Smith bought again and
again, keeping no memorandum, until he was in it for over ten thousand.
“Then came the deciding hand. We did not play straight flushes then,
so fours of any denomination made even a stronger hand than they do
now, and Smith caught four eights. There isn’t a poker player on earth
who wouldn’t look on that as a chance to recoup, and very few who
wouldn’t risk their pile on the chance. Smith did it anyhow, and came
to grief. He risked more than his pile, for, as it happened, the other
Congressman held a good hand, too, and bet freely for a little while.
Jones had four queens and scooped the pot. The Westerner wasn’t in it.
“All the chips were in the center when Smith raised it a thousand,
putting up a marker in the shape of an I. O. U., hastily scribbled.
The other Congressman dropped out, and Jones came back with another
thousand. Smith was fairly white, but he reached over and changed the
figures on his I. O. U. from $1,000 to $4,000, saying quietly, ‘Two
better.’
“‘Two more than you,’ said Jones, just as quietly, laying four
one-thousand-dollar bills on the table. And then there was dead silence
in the room.
“Smith paused, and it seemed to me that I could read his thoughts. He
was eager enough to go on with the play, but though he did not know,
and could not stop just then to reckon how deeply he was dipped, he
knew he was over his head. Moreover, four eights, strong as it was, was
not an invincible hand, and his better sense urged him to call.
“Finally he did, and when the showdown came, I thought for a moment he
would faint. He rallied, however, and like the gallant fellow he was,
made some light remark with a half-laugh as he rose from the table.
“‘I’ve got enough for to-night,’ he said, and the game was over. I
never knew all the circumstances of the settlement, but I know the bill
was reported favorably by the committee within a week, and that Smith
used to hang around the club-house more persistently than ever for the
rest of the season. As for Jones, I never saw him after that night.”
Poker for High Stakes
_A BOUT WITH CARD SHARPERS ON A MISSISSIPPI BOAT_
“I have always found it hard to believe the stories I used to read
about the luxury of travel and the magnificence of the appointments
on the great Mississippi River steamboats,” said the gray-haired
young-looking man in the club smoking-room. “It seems to be the
generally accepted belief that forty years ago or so people went up
and down on the bosom of the Father of Waters in floating palaces,
enjoying something like the extreme of sumptuous luxury. Maybe that is
true. I didn’t travel the river so long ago as that, and, of course, I
can’t say what the condition of things may or may not have been when I
wasn’t there to see. What I can say positively is that if it was true
in those days, the war or some other disturbing cause changed things
very materially before I became as familiar as I did afterward with the
river boats. My notion is that the whole thing is a tradition, resting
on very little foundation excepting comparison. The mere fact of having
a stateroom to sleep in, with only one stranger as a room-mate, and a
seat at a table with room for a waiter to pass behind you, served to
make travelers at that time think they were in luxury, because they
hadn’t experienced it before. And I imagine, from what I know of a
later period, that that was about the extent of the luxury. Certainly
none of the boats I was ever on, in the ’60s and ’70s, compared with
the North River or the Sound boats of the same time. And even those
would not seem very luxurious to travelers of the present day.
“But there were a good many stories told about the old-time Mississippi
boats that I am fully prepared to believe. That the game of poker
flourished on the river as it never has elsewhere, before or since,
seems entirely probable. I have seen games that made me hold my breath
because of the size of the stakes, and because of the fact that I knew
the players were all armed, and a shot or a stab was certain to follow
a hasty word or a suspicious act.
“It was on a trip from Memphis to Natchez that I first saw a woman
gamble in public. The boat wasn’t crowded, but there were perhaps fifty
passengers on board, and among them were six or eight ladies and this
woman. That she was a social outlaw was evident enough at a glance. Not
only were her clothes of a fashion too pronounced for respectability
and her jewelry too ostentatious for daylight wear, but there was a
frank devilry in her eye, and a defiant swing--almost a swagger--in
her carriage that told the story all too plainly. Her behavior was
correct enough. She was, or seemed to be, traveling alone, and she took
the somewhat too ostentatious avoidance of the ladies in perfectly
good part, pretending to be utterly unconscious of it, and ignoring
them as completely as they did her. Neither did she give any overt
encouragement to the efforts that some of the men made to cultivate her
acquaintance. It was evident that while she took no pains to conceal
her character, she did not propose to make herself obnoxious. Naturally
every one was curious to know who she was, and I soon learned, as
I supposed the other passengers all did, that she was a notorious
character in New Orleans, where she was known as ‘Flash Kate.’ What
her business had been in Memphis I did not hear, but a dozen stories
were told of her recklessness and general cussedness, and among other
things it was said that she was a confirmed gambler.
“After supper the first evening we were on board, the tables in the
main saloon were cleared, and, as if it were a matter of course, two
games of poker were soon in progress. It was plain enough that two of
the men in the game that I watched at first were professionals, but
the game was small, and I found no great excitement in it, though it
was, in a way, interesting to notice how easily the others were being
fleeced. Tiring, after a time, of watching so bold a fraud, I sauntered
over to the other table, and found a very different game in progress.
“In the first place, it was a bigger game. They were playing table
stakes, and each man had a wad of greenbacks lying alongside his chips.
White chips were a dollar, and bets of ten or twenty at once were
common. There were several thousand dollars in sight, and it looked
as if any moment might bring on a struggle between hands that would
draw down big money. Then it did not take long for me to determine
that two of the men in this game also were professionals. The third
man at the table I knew. He was a cotton-factor from New Orleans, who
had been up the river on a business trip investigating some of the
advances he and his partner had made to the planters. He was young--not
over thirty, I should say--but I knew he had the reputation of being a
bold speculator, and it did not seem surprising to see him at cards.
The other two men--there were five playing--puzzled me. One was a
veteran soldier. You could tell that from his military bearing without
waiting to hear him addressed as ‘Major,’ but an ex-soldier of either
army might be anything from a gambler to a bank president. The other
was a nondescript. There didn’t seem to be any points about him to
distinguish him from anybody else, but I afterward learned that he was
a cattle-dealer.
“The game lasted far into the night, and was interesting all the way
through, but, somewhat to my surprise, there was no very desperate
struggle over any single pot. The hands ran fairly well, and some few
big ones were held, but no two unusual ones happened to be held in the
same deal. So far as I could see, the play was absolutely fair, and I
wondered a little that the gamblers should attempt no tricks. Later
on I understood it. They were laying the foundation for the second
night’s play, and their game was to lose a little at the first sitting.
Accordingly they did so, and one pulled out soon after midnight, saying
with a laugh that he had lost all he wanted to. The cotton-factor was a
loser, too, though not to any very serious extent. The other two were
ahead. Altogether it was a pleasant sitting, and it was a foregone
conclusion that the game would be renewed, as it was, the next
evening. After supper the five seated themselves without loss of time,
and the spectators stood, two deep, around the table inside of a few
minutes. The clerk of the boat was banker, and furnished the cards and
sold the chips, as a matter of course.
“For half an hour or so there was no special play, but the lookers-on
were patient, and the excitement grew with every deal. It was the first
time I ever saw ladies look on at public gambling, but there were three
or four on board who walked in, holding their husbands’ arms, and
watched the proceedings with keen interest. Presently, however, ‘Flash
Kate’ sauntered up alone, and the ladies seeing her, quietly withdrew.
She paid no attention to this, but stood apparently absorbed in the
game, and edging forward from time to time till she stood directly
behind the cotton-factor.
“The betting grew heavier. The ante was made ten dollars and the bet
was often fifty, but still there was no contest between unusual hands.
We all knew it was coming, though, and I noticed that three or four of
the men near me were breathing hard. ‘Flash Kate’s’ eyes sparkled like
a snake’s and her lips were parted, but she was as silent as we all
were. Even the players said nothing outside of the few words the game
called for.
“Suddenly I heard a sort of gasp from the man next me, and at the
same instant I saw the fellow they called Keene hold out an ace. It
was cleverly done, and yet I marveled at his nerve in trying such a
trick under so many watching eyes. He relied, of course, on his skill,
which was really marvelous, but I had studied such things too closely
to be mistaken, and as, for an instant, I met the eye of the man who
had gasped, I saw that he was equally certain. Neither of us was fool
enough to say anything, for interference meant fight, and I wondered
for a moment what would follow, or if any of the players had seen it.
“It was the deal of the cattle-dealer, whose name was Downing, next,
and as he gathered up the cards he threw them, with a quick motion,
on the floor, saying: ‘Bring us a fresh deck, Mr. Clerk, of another
color.’ It seemed certain that he had seen Keene’s manœuvre, but if he
had he gave no other indication of it, but shuffled and dealt the cards
as coolly as if nothing out of the way had happened. Neither could I
see any trace of chagrin or disappointment on Keene’s face as he was
thus cleverly checkmated. He looked sharply at Downing for an instant,
as if to see whether he had really been discovered or not, but that
worthy did not return the glance, and the game went on.