"SNAP GAMES."
I was coming down from the Memphis races on the R. W. Hill. There were about twenty-five gamblers on the boat, and they were all crazy for a game of faro. I told them I had a set of tools on board that I would loan them if they wanted to open. They accepted the offer, and took turns in opening "snaps." Some opened as high as $1,000 at a time. I was playing poker, and did not pay much attention to their game. After supper I told them that I would open a $1,000 "snap," and they could tap it when they pleased. When I sat down to deal, I had a matched set of boxes; you could not tell one from the other. One box was fixed for all the cases to lose, and this I kept secreted. They knocked me out of $400 on one deal; on the next deal I shuffled up the same cards and put them in the box, so they could see that everything was on the square. As I did so, my partner tipped over a big lot of silver on the layout, which he had stacked up on purpose to draw their attention, and I came the change on the boxes and threw my handkerchief over the box I held in my lap. Everything went on all right. The first case that showed on the case-keeper they all jumped on to play it open, as they wanted to break the snap, as then I would open another; but the case lost, and I was a good big winner over the last deal. When it came to another case, they played it to win, and it lost; but they did not think anything was wrong, so they kept firing away till they were all pretty well crippled in money matters. They played the deal out, and nearly all were broke. At the end of the deal I said, "Boys, I will have to quit you, as it is too much of a seesaw game;" and then they commenced to smell a rat, and you would have given $100 to have heard them cursing for not watching me shuffle that deal. The game closed with nearly all the money won; some of them I had to loan money, to pay their expenses.