Upon going to Foggy's, Robert had found his cousin Ewing Pagebrook there playing cards. The boy—for he was not yet of age—was flushed and excited, and Robert saw at a glance that he had been losing heavily. On Robert's entrance he threw down his cards and declared himself tired of play.
"I'll arrange that, Foggy," said the boy, with a nod.
"O any time will do!" replied the other. "How d'ye do, Charley? Come in."
Dr. Charley introduced Robert, and the latter, barely recognizing Foggy's greeting, turned to Ewing and asked:
"What have you been doing, Ewing? Not gambling, I hope."
"O no! certainly not," said Foggy; "only a little game of draw-poker, ten cents ante."
"Well, but how much have you lost, Ewing?" asked Robert. "How much more than you can pay in cash, I mean? I see you haven't settled the score."
Ewing was inclined to resent his cousin's questioning, but his rather weak head was by no means a match for his cousin's strong one. This great hulking Robert Pagebrook was "big all over," Billy Barksdale had said. His will was law to most men when he chose to assert it strongly. He now took his cousin in hand, and made him confess to a debt of fifty dollars to the gambler. Then turning to Foggy he said:
"Mr. Raves, you have won all of this young man's money and fifty dollars more, it appears. Now, as I understand the matter, this fifty dollars is 'a debt of honor,' in gambling parlance, and so it must be paid. But you must acknowledge that you are more than a match for a mere boy, and you ought to 'give him odds.' I believe that is the correct phrase, is it not?"
"Yes, that's right; but how can you give odds in draw-poker?"