There has been a good many times, true enough, when things looked doubtful. Players has come that had new wrinkles in the way o’ holdin’ out, or stackin’ the cards, or some new system o’ play that puzzled the boys for awhile. An’ there’s been some come that sure knowed the game an’ played it almighty skilful. But none of ’em, as I said, ever reely got away with the proposition.
There was one feller, though, that showed up here about six years ago, that come monstrous near breakin’ the record. That is to say, if he’d have understood the first principles o’ poker he’d ha’ busted the town wide open, an’ the mortifyin’ thing about it was ’twas poker he was playin’. That is, ’twas called poker, an’ he sure did win, but the way he played it was one o’ the seven wonders o’ the world. We talked about it quite some, after he left, an’ the unanimous verdict was that if he ha’ knowed what he was doin’ an’ how to do it, he’d ha’ just everlastin’ly skint the entire crowd out o’ what money there was, instead o’ comin’ out consid’able ahead, an’ him not knowin’ just how he done it or what he’d done. It sure were bewilderin’, an’ well cal’lated to make a man lose his faith in Providence, ’thout he was one that stuck to his religion spite of anything.
The puzzlin’ thing about it were that the feller seemed to be playin’ poker all the time, an’ the rest o’ the party was playin’ it for all they knew, but he were either playin’ on a system that was entirely unbeknownst to everybody in this part o’ the world, or else he were that outrageous ignorant o’ first principles as would disgrace a half-grown boy. An’ yet he won! Some of ’em was inclined to think at first that it were a new system, an’ there was a good deal o’ speculation on how it would work, played constant, but nobody had the nerve to try it, seein’ it were plumb contrary to all science as poker is understood, an’ they couldn’t get up that child-like confidence in heaven’s mercy that would lead ’em to look for over-whelmin’ luck in the matter o’ cards at the critical moments o’ the game.
The way of it was this. He just landed from the boat one day an’ walked up the levee a bit, lookin’ round, an’ sayin’ nothin’ to nobody. There didn’t seem to be no reason for anybody to pay attention to him, an’ consequent nobody did, for he wa’n’t a man that looked like a sport, nor yet a business man. Just ’peared to have got out f’m somewheres an’ didn’t know his way back. After he looked round a spell, he sort o’ drifted in to the hotel an’ wrote his name, absent-minded like, on the register, an’ said ‘Yes’ when the proprietor ast him if he wanted a room. Then he just sat round for a day or two, sayin’ nothin’ to nobody all the time. Didn’t appear to have ambition enough to eat his meals, for he’d wait till everybody else was most through ’fore he’d go into the dinin’-room. An’ even when he took a drink, which wa’n’t often, he did it all alone without seemin’ to take no interest in it.
“ ‘Long about the third day he began takin’ short walks, an’ bimeby he got as far as to come in here an’ look ’round. Seein’ the bar, he called for some red liquor an’ drank it, an’ then seein’ a chair he sot down. There hadn’t been much doin’ for a week or two, an’ I says to Jake Winterbottom that it mought be a good idea to start a game o’ poker. ‘This here stranger,’ I says, ‘don’t look as if he knowed one card from another, but ’tain’t likely he’s quite as simple as he looks, an’ mebbe,’ I says, ‘you might get him into the game. Don’t make it too stiff right away,’ I says, ’an’ who knows but you might get a small stake out of him? ’Tain’t very promisin’,’ I says, ‘but some men is like crooked cattle. There’s more meat on ’em than they looks.’
Well, Jake, he didn’t think there was nothin’ doin’. He looked the stranger over an’ sort o’ turned up his nose, but things was quiet, an’ finally he says: ‘I don’t reckon he’s got fifty dollars in the world, an’ if we win that we’ll only have to chip in an’ send him away. There ain’t the makings of a citizen into him, no way I can figure it, an’ we don’t want him settin’ around for ever. But we might take a shy at it, just to pass the time.’
“So him an’ Sam Blaisdell an’ George Bascom kind o’ got together an’ played a few hands, thinkin’ the stranger might show some interest an’ propose to join the game, but he never stirred. Just sot still an’ chawed his tobacco, like he didn’t give a cuss for nothin’. So finally Bascom he spoke up an’ says: ‘This is pretty slow playin’ three-handed. We’d oughter have somebody else in the game,’ an’ they waited a minute to see if that would catch him, but he never even looked round. So Winterbottom says: ‘Wouldn’t you like to play?’ an’ the stranger he says: ‘Yes,’ just the same absent-minded-like way he’d spoke to the hotel proprietor, an’ he went over an’ sot in. I sold him ten dollars’ o’ chips, an’ they dealt him cards. It were a table stakes game, an’ each man had put up ten.
“The stranger, he talked like a Yankee an’ looked like a Frenchman, but his name on the hotel register was Dennis McCarthy, an’ for all the interest he showed in the cards after he got ’em he might have been a Chinee. He just put up when it come his turn, an’ drawed cards every time, but he never made a bet till his ten was all gone, an’ then he bought ten more as calm an’ collected as a knot-hole in a board fence.
“Well, we played along, if you can call it playing poker, just like that until his third ten-spot was gone, an’ he bought ten more worth o’ chips. Then he caught a hand that seemed to interest him some, for he studied it a long time after Bascom had bet ten on his cards before he said anything. Then he said, ‘I call,’ an’ shoved a ten-dollar bill into the pot. They showed down an’ the stranger had a pair o’ queens. Bascom, he had three sevens, so he raked the pot, o’ course, for Winterbottom an’ Blaisdell had passed out.
“Well, that there McCarthy, if his name was McCarthy, just sat there and called every bet that was made after that for three-quarters of an hour. I never see such a thing before nor since. ’Peared like he’d on’y just found out that he could call, an’ he’d been playin’ along afore that on the idee that all the other feller had to do to win the pot was to make a bet, an’ as if he’d got in his head that callin’ was all he was ’lowed to do under the rules. Whatever his fool notion was, I don’t p’tend to say, but that’s just what he did. Just called every time it come to him.