I took a chair, and watched the great gambler as he spoke to the men who pressed about him. He was jocular, good-natured, kindly.
“Cheer up, old fellow,” he would say, with an affectionate tap on the shoulder, “your turn will come one of these days.”
I waited for an hour or more.
The market closed. The half-crazed players in this temple of fortune were moving out of its door. Soon the place was empty of all save the clerks and the Prince himself and two or three hangers-on.
As Fisk was turning to me a man of clerical dress and manners accosted him.
“Mr. Fisk,” said he, “we need a fence around the cemetery up there in Bennington, and I've come to ask you to help us.”
What a finish for that deadly day of torment!
The Prince laughed.
“A fence around a cemetery!” he exclaimed. “You don't need it. Those who are in can't get out, and those who are out don't want to get in, so what's the use; but here's fifty dollars.”
He gave him the money, and turned to me, and said: