In nine cases out of ten the man will cry heads, but it must be done quickly, without giving him time to think; and you want to lay a little emphasis, but not too much, on the word “heads.” Anybody can try this for themselves, and they will find that what I say is true.
Another coin-tossing trick! Where you are asked to “cry to pieces,” a favourite trick with men who are not too particular is to say, with affected carelessness: “Oh, I’ll have the same as the top one.” In this way, if the first coin is a head, he starts off with one to the good, and the man who puts down the coins is, of course, handicapped to that extent.
Speaking of racecourse sharps, I once was tackled by a gang of three-card men under rather peculiar circumstances. I was working at the Empire, Newcastle, where I topped the bill as the World’s Premier Card Manipulator. With me were the Poluski Brothers, and Sam Poluski, who is well known in the profession as a sportsman, introduced me to a local tout, called Bunny, who used to back horses for him, and incidentally, if he heard of a “good thing,” he would tell Sam about it, and Sam would tip him for his trouble if the horse won. If it didn’t win, then Bunny got his commission from the bookie with whom he placed the bet, so that he was all right either way.
Bunny was perfectly straight himself, but he, of course, knew all “the boys.” Well, on the Friday of the week I was there, there was what they call up there “a flapper meeting”; that is to say, a small race meeting got up under National Hunt rules among the farmers and others. I went there alone, but took Bunny with me as a sort of bodyguard, and to show me the ropes.
The place where the meeting was to be held was about half an hour’s run from Newcastle by train, and I arranged for Bunny to meet me at the Central Station. I got there first, and I must say that I had seldom seen a tougher-looking crowd assembled anywhere. By and by Bunny turned up, and I took two first-class tickets, for I didn’t like the look of the mob on the platform, and I thought that by this means, and if we waited until the train was just about to start, we might manage to get a compartment to ourselves. If we could do this, I reflected, we were all right, for the train, a special race one, did not stop until we got to the course.
I was at this time a youngish lad, with curly hair, and looked, I suppose, a typical “pie-can,” which is the bookies’ way of characterising a “mug.” The train was a bit late at starting, and while we were waiting I distinctly saw Bunny “give the office” to a gang of “the boys.”
“Here, Bunny,” I said, taking him to one side. “No larks. What’s the game?”
“All right, Carlton, old man,” he replied. “Don’t get alarmed. I’m only going to have a lark with some of these chaps.”
I wasn’t at all reassured at this, for the gang didn’t look to me at all the kind it was in the least advisable to play larks on. However, there was not time to say anything further, for at that moment the whistle blew, and Bunny jumped into an empty first-class compartment and I after him, so too did five or six of the boys; the same Bunny had given the tip to. Just as the train was starting a detective poked his head in the window, and cried warningly, “Beware of card-sharpers.” I quickly slipped my diamond pin out of my tie, and stuck it in the back of my waistcoat. Then I buttoned up my coat over my inside pocket, where the bulk of my money was, and waited.
I hadn’t long to wait. Within a minute or two the three cards were produced, and the old familiar performance gone through; the men, all apparently strangers to each other, winning and losing alternately. Bunny also took a hand and won. Was he not, in a sense, “one of the boys”? It was, of course, all stage-managed for my benefit.