The next two deals were uneventful, and then Krags took the deck. His thick muscular fingers were well kept and white, after the usual rule as touching the hands of professional gamesters, and one who looked closely would have seen that they were singularly deft as well. As it happened there were three men at the table who were looking closely, and when he passed the cards over to Hennessy for the cut, that player riffled them three times before cutting them, whereat Stumpy grinned with glee, and Long Mike looked serene and satisfied.
Krags could say nothing, for Hennessy was within his rights, but he leaned a little over toward the left side as he dealt, leaving his right-hand hip pocket a little easier to get at. It was only a slight indication of the possibilities, but there was not a man at the table who failed to notice it.
From that time on the tension increased. After Krags’s deal Stumpy called for a new deck of another colour, and when that had been used twice, Long Mike ran over it carefully, and called for still another deck. “There’s an ace o’ hearts here,” he said, “that a man can tell across the room.” No charge of crooked play had been made, but the visitors saw that they were suspected, and they were well prepared for the row that was coming.
Long Mike it was that precipitated it. He was watching Krags intently, and suddenly, as that player was discarding after serving the others with the draw in his own deal, Long Mike reached over and seized both his wrists with a lightning-like movement.
“Ye have six cards in yer hand, ye spalpeen, an’ two in yer sleeve,” and twisting Krags’s hands remorselessly, he proved that he was right.
Instantly the room was in an uproar, and
