Again, gamblers, for mutual advantage, generally travel in small
companies, and in secret partnership. I have again adverted to this, in
order to mention one of the ways in which they often turn their
partnership to good account. They almost invariably feign to be total
strangers to each other, the better to carry out their base designs; and
when one or two of them are seated at a table at play with some whom
they wish to fleece, one of the company will seem to be a total stranger
to everybody, seats himself in sight of a man’s hand, who is at play,
and is not one of the confederates; and if he shows, by word or act,
that he would rather he would not, he will readily protest that his only
motive is the gratification of an idle curiosity; that he scarcely knows
one card from another. And very probably, after such protestations from
one who appears a stranger, and withal an honest gentleman, he is
suffered to continue to look into the player’s hand. If he should be
asked to play, he will say, “I cannot, as I have never learned; indeed,
I scarcely know the cards.” He will take this course in order that his
looking into the hands of the players may not be objected to. And his
motive in looking into the hands is to give his secret partners signs.
This he will do in various ways. I have known men who would give signs,
that were perfectly intelligible, by the different manner in which they
would blow their cigar smoke. In even such simple and imperative acts as
holding the cards a gambler can give intelligence to his partner. As for
his fingers, their slightest movement, however natural, conveys
information. And in order to evade suspicion, I have also known signs to
be conveyed through two and three different persons, who were secret
partners of the players, and were sitting in different parts of the same
room; and the signs would always reach the player in time to benefit
him. This is often done when there is danger of being detected, if he
should look at the man who is looking in the other’s hands for his
signs. Nor is it a matter of importance whether there is a room full or
not; for they will practise these artifices before a room full as well
as if there was a very small number of persons present.
At other times, when a man loses heavily, one of the company will go to
him and form an acquaintance, if it does not already exist, and will say
to him, “You are much the loser with A or B, and I am acquainted with
him, and if you will in confidence accept the offer, I will do you a
favour, by which you will stand a chance of getting your money back
again. Do you engage with him in play, and I will sit back of him, and
give you correct signs from his hand, so that you can know how to govern
your bets.” Nothing appears more generous than this; and a weak man is
apt to be eager to avail himself of any means that promises to restore
him his lost money, and will feel highly elated that he has met with an
unexpected friend, and will flatter himself with the idea of winning all
the man has; feeling that if his pretended friend should succeed in
giving him correct signs one hand out of four, it will be sufficient to
enable him to win much from him. This is all the basest deception. The
man proposing this mode of playing is a secret partner of the winner,
and their design is to swindle the man still further. Both are fully
apprised of the plan, and when they succeed in getting the loser to play
again (they generally have cards which they know as well by the backs as
by the faces), if the winner should have a large hand, and the loser a
larger one, he (the winner) will bunch his cards so closely that the one
behind cannot see to give signs, and he then suffers himself to be run
off. And if you should have one or two pairs (which he will know by the
backs), and he should get the same, though a little larger, he will then
permit the man to give signs that he has only one or two pairs, as the
case may be, and all that he can entice the loser to bet, he will win
from him.
The gambler will only bet on small worthless cards when his hand is
better than his opponent’s; and, frequently, by such contrivances as we
explain, will deal the latter three aces and a pair of kings to his own
four tens or knaves.
Anybody would bet largely on such a hand, and thus, a gambler will ruin
a man in a few games.