"'Finally,' said he, 'we are getting out of our depth and beyond the breaker line, ain't we? I've got you man-handled, but you junipers from the East never can feel the hunch when you are licked, and so I'll skate in my little five and call you.'
"We each had about $80 in the pot then.
"I spread out my three royal gentlemen topping the pair of tens, and was just about to make some good-natured crack about getting a hoe to scoop in my winnings on the first hand, when he spread out his hand and raked in the pot with a smile. His hand consisted of a pair of aces up on a pair of sixes and the joker.
"'What the dickens are you doing there?' I asked him when he raked in the pot. 'Can't you see it's a misdeal? I forgot to take the joker out of the deck.'
"'Misdeal nothing,' he said, still smiling. 'You had a good hand all right, but aces beat kings, you know, anywhere from Tuolume to Tucson.'
"'Yes,' said I, 'but you've only got aces up, and I've got a full hand, kings up, and it's a misdeal, anyhow'——
"Well, they all looked at me like they thought I ought to be in a lunatic asylum.
"'Misdeal?' said my friend who had swiped the pot. 'What the deuce are you giving us, anyhow? I caught the joker on the draw, and it just filled my hand—three aces and a pair of sixes. Don't an ace-full beat a king-full in that desolate Atlantic coast region you hail from?'
"'You mean you call the joker an ace?' said I, the thing beginning to dawn upon me.
"The three fellows gazed at me as if they were trying to find out if I was drunk or not.