The youth laughed. "You are not in luck to-night. Maybe your luck will return, if you keep on. Haven't you another V?"
"Nary another!"
"Where's your pard, that got salted the other night?"
"Who—Chet Diamond? Wal, hee's around heer, sum'ars, but I can't borry none off o' him. No; I've gotter quit straight off."
"I'll lend you ten to begin on," said the youth, and he laid an X in the ruffian's hands. "There, now, go ahead with your funeral. It's your deal."
The cards were dealt, and the game played, resulting in the favor of the "Cattymount." Another and another was played, and the tough won every time. Still the youth kept on, a quiet smile resting on his pleasant features, a twinkle in his coal-black eye. The youth, dear reader, you have met before.
He is not he, but instead—Calamity Jane. On goes the game, the burly "tough" winning all the time, his pile of tens steadily increasing in hight.
"Talk about Joner an' the ark, an' Noar an' ther whale!" he cries, slapping another X onto the pile with great enthusiasm; "I hed a grate, grate muther-in-law w'at played keerds wi' Noar inside o' thet eyedentical whale's stummick—played poker wi' w'alebones fer pokers. They were afterward landed at Plymouth rock, or sum uther big rock, an' fit together, side by side, in the rebellyuns."
"Indeed!"—with an amused laugh—"then you must have descended from a long line of respected ancestors."
"Auntsisters? Wa'al, I jest about reckon I do. I hev got ther blood o' Cain and Abel in my veins, boyee, an' ef I ken't raise the biggest kind o' Cain tain't because I ain't able—oh! no. Pace anuther pilgrim?"