“Then I started to try to lose money. Fancy a man doing that at poker! I threw down a number of hands that were well worth betting on, and bet rather heavily on some that I was convinced were losers. Even at that I got fooled once or twice and took in pots that were not contested, when the other players would have won them if they had not grown cautious of my luck. Still, I was reducing my pile slowly, in spite of the cards I was getting, and would have reduced it still further if the ladies had not grown tired of their own society and come out to look at the game. One or two casual remarks by their husbands about my luck excited their curiosity, and two or three began looking at my cards.
“I don’t know what they thought of my playing, for I still refused to press my luck as even the most cowardly player would have done, but I know they were fairly astonished at the way the cards came to me. Over and over again I filled full hands, drawing to a pair; twice I held fours, and the flushes were as common as two pairs ever were when I played before. I played at random. I made wild draws and foolish bets, and threw down winning hands, but the chips kept coming my way till the situation became positively painful. That luck held till the game broke up, and, though I had honestly tried to keep from winning, I had seventy-five dollars cash to the good, over and above the stack I bought on entering the game. To make matters worse, one of the players had given me some unmistakably black looks, and in my embarrassment I felt certain that he took me for a card sharp, and I thought that the others would be likely to share his opinion.
“When we were all saying good-night, however, one of the players drew me one side and whispered:
“‘We were very glad to see you win that money.’ I was puzzled for fair, but I said:
“‘Well, I’m glad you’re glad, but why should you be? I didn’t exactly like it myself.’
“‘No,’ he replied. ‘I saw you didn’t. But didn’t you notice that the man that lost the most lost his temper also?’
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did notice that.’
“‘Well,’ he chuckled, ‘he is the fellow we have been trying all winter to catch.’
“That was a relief, but I never got over my regret that the easiest winnings I ever made at poker should have come when I was trying my best to lose.”
“I quite believe, as you do,” said one of his listeners, “that there is such a thing as luck, but do you think that it is affected by anything that we can possess?”