"Where have you been?" asked Matt, "I've been over by your house whistling for you for the past hour. And the loveliest thing—oh, my! Will Pinkshaw has learned a new game of cards—poker, they call it, and it's splendid. Gamblers play it for money, but it's just as much fun to bet buttons, or beans, or corn-grains, or anything. Will and I have been playing it in the moonlight, by your side fence, ever since dark, and we must have played a hundred games."
"It isn't too late for me to learn, is it?" said Jack. "The moon will shine all night."
"Oh, somebody might come along," protested Matt. "The constables prowl around after ten o'clock, you know."
"Then let's go into the stable and get on the hay under the big window," said Jack. "The moon shines in there—nice soft seat, out of sight—everything."
"But we haven't any cards," said Matt.
"Then borrow Will Pinkshaw's," said Jack. "You bring 'em up to the stable—you know the way—and I'll have a handful of corn ready, and we'll have a jolly quiet game for a little while."
Matt was nothing loth to act upon this suggestion, for new games with cards—or anything else—have a way of utterly enthralling the juvenile mind. Within ten minutes he was back with the cards, but their owner had refused to loan the precious pasteboards unless they were accompanied by himself, and Jack experienced a great though secret joy that without his own direct agency he was brought into company with a boy other than Matt, and at a place somewhat different from the Sunday-school where alone he had fraternized with boys during the month. The modus operandi of the game was speedily made known to Jack, the corn was scrupulously divided into three equal portions, and the play began. Jack had not read Hoyle, so perhaps it was the devil, who is said to be particularly encouraging to green players, that decided nearly every game in Jack's favor. Matt was soon "busted," and meekly borrowed twenty grains of corn from the winner, but the Pinkshaw twin, who had bet no more carefully than Matt, remained financially equal to his engagements.
Jack began to wonder whether the Pinkshaw twin might not have sold his soul to the devil, like some gambler he had read of whose money was magically reproduced as fast as he lost it. The thought caused him to fix his eye upon the Pinkshaw twin as if he had been fascinated by him, and soon he discovered that the arch-adversary of souls operated from the heart of the owner of the unfailing pile, for the Pinkshaw twin, who had been pre-informed of the currency to be used, was seen to slyly take some corn from his pocket and lay it upon his pile.
In an instant a sharp quarrel ensued, the Pinkshaw twin lying most industriously and displaying an empty pocket in evidence, but a careful examination of Jack's winnings showed that many grains of sweet corn were among them, whereas there was no such grain in the bin from which Jack had supplied the general exchequer. So the Pinkshaw twin sullenly confessed, and pleaded that playing for corn-grains was no fun, anyhow, for a fellow couldn't do anything with them after he had won them; he therefore proposed that the party should play for buttons.
"Where will we get them?" asked Matt.