"Yes," said the Conservative Kentucky chap, still to himself, "the pasteboards are all right—hem!—it's your deal. Ah! ten is it?—I'll go twenty better—forty—sixty! Hem! Ace and two Kings is it? Look here—three aces! Good-night, gents."—and the Conservative Kentucky chap at once sang, with triumphant and great effect:
"Four years the war have looked upon,
But haven't brought the end meant;
Nor anything except the Constitutional Amendment;
Oh, Kentucky! an't this a go, Kentucky?
Oh, Kentucky! an awful blow, Kentucky!"
As the last note of exquisite melody died away upon the air, I slapped him on the shoulder, and says I:
"Well done, my son of Hoyle!"
The Conservative Kentucky chap sprang wildly to his feet, my boy, simultaneously "making a pass" of the cards into his pocket, and commenced dancing insanely before me with a view of hiding from my notice the four of clubs, which he had dropped to the ground and was anxious to conceal in the mud.
"Ha! ha!" observed the Conservative Kentucky chap, somewhat hysterically, in the midst of his dance; "of course you didn't see what I was doing?"