By this time I was fairly infected with the game, and had thrown all discretion to the winds with regard to my return to the office. I felt confident that I could win a lot of money, and up to this point had not the faintest suspicion that I was in the midst of a gang of card-sharpers of whose modus operandi of working the business I was now being given a practical demonstration. Therefore, when the leader of the coterie, the man, who had “hooked” me outside, suggested that the stakes should be thirty-two shillings I made no demur, but blindly accepted, fondly imagining that by exercising a little care in watching where the cards were placed I should be able to spot the “lady.”
“Now, gentlemen,” cried the card manipulator, deliberately holding up the picture card to our view every two or three shuffles, so that I was able to follow its fortunes with the greatest ease, “there is the lady! Just watch carefully where I place her.”
As I had been the last loser it was my turn to pick out the picture, and as he placed the winning card in the centre (I could have sworn he did) I did not hesitate to indicate my choice by at once turning it face upwards, when, lo and behold! all that met my gaze was a plain white surface. Instead of being in the middle, the “lady” was at the right of me, though how this sleight-of-hand trick had been accomplished under my very eyes without my detecting it was past my comprehension.
“Thank you,” said the swindler, suavely; “thirty-two shillings, please”; and after some fumbling in my trousers pocket I succeeded in detaching two pound notes from the roll.
“Eight shillings change,” he remarked, genially, and handed me over the silver.
Inconceivable as it may appear, it is nevertheless the fact that even this “fleecing” did not arouse my suspicion as to the bona fides of the proceedings in which I was being made the victim. Possibly I was too excited at the moment to give this aspect of the matter a thought. My chief concern just then was to recover the money I had lost—not my own money, it should be remembered, but my employer’s.
At the suggestion of the old gentleman, who had not up to the present won a penny, and yet struck me as taking his “bad luck” very philosophically, the stakes were increased to three pounds—“so as to” (I use his own ingenuous phrase) “give the young gentleman and myself a chance.”
I sprang at the bait. Indeed, I was desperately in earnest, and mentally vowed that I must win this time at all costs.
Need it be recorded that I lost?
The card on the left—my choice—was not the “lady,” and three more notes were separated from the roll in my pocket.