Even then I realized nothing and knew not that my villainy was made bare. This news, however, was not long in its arrival.
“Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” roared my father.
Coincident with this remark, the paternal hand—not the lightest nor least formidable on Tom’s Run—dealt me a buffet on the head that lifted me from my sinful chair and hurled me across the room and against the wall full fifteen feet away. My teeth clattered, my wits reeled, while my ill-gotten silver danced blithely to metallic music of its own.
“Niver did I r-raise a boy to be a r-robber!” again shouted my father. Then seizing me by the collar, he lifted me to my feet. “Put all your money on the ta-able!” he cried; “put ivry groat av it!”
There was no escape; I was powerless in the talons of an inexorable fate. My pockets yielded a harvest of hardby seventy-five dollars—something more than the total of my winnings—and this was placed in the center of the table which had so lately witnessed my skill. An even distribution was then made by my father among the victims, each getting his share of the recovered treasure; my father keeping none for himself though urged by the others to that end.
“No,” said my father; “I’ll touch niver a penny av it. You take th’ money; I’ll make shift that the dishgrace of bein’ fa-ather to a rapparee shall do for me share!”
With that, he withdrew from the scene of my downfall, carrying me fast in his clutch; and later—bathed in tears of pain and shame—I was dragged into the presence of my mother and Father Glennon by the ignominious ear.
It did not cure me of cards, however; I ran the whole gamut of gambling and won dangerous prominence as a sharper of elevation and rank. To-morrow evening, should you care to listen, I may unfold concerning other of my adventures; I may even relate—as a tale most to my diplomatic glory, perhaps—how I brought Casino Joe to endow me with that great secret, richer, in truth! than the mines of Peru! of “How to Tell the Last Four.”
“Speakin’ of gamblin’,” observed the Old Cattleman when the Red Nosed Gentleman had come to a full stop, “I’ll bet a bloo stack that as we-alls sets yere talkin’, the games is goin’ brisk an’ hot in Wolfville. Thar won’t be no three foot of snow to put a damper on trade an’ hobble a gent’s energies in Arizona.” This last with a flush of pride.