Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1872-04-25
THE LAST DOLLAR.
How A Thoroughbred CANDLES.

A Kentucky gentleman of full habit, noble
front, and an impressive appearance of
financial stability about him, started in to
break up faro bank on Race street short
time ago; not by the vulgar process of law,
but by the more enlightened and diplomatic
method of winning out the bank roll. 1t so
happened, however, as it frequently comes to
vor his laudable enterprise. In fact, luck was
''agin" him. He played too many on side,
uniformly augmented and diminished his bets
at the wrong time, and the 'Jack" proving
''game keard," finally caught him for all he
had. What did he then, abandon the fight,
and acknowledge himself defeated? Not
much. Your besieged citidel will ask truce,
your riddled war-ship will strike her -colors,
your disarmed gorilla-hunter turn and flee,
your worsted bully below ''enough;" but as
the dying brave will spurn and spit upon his
plying captors, the doomed Communist sneer
at the hereafter, even so will your Kentucky
gambler combat, and eXecrate personified fate.
A thousand disastrous deals leave him un
daunted. He still believes that the "outside"
must eventually be victorious. So confident
is he of final triumph, that he does not even
demand new manipulation of the cards. So
it was with the hero of this brief narrative.
He was bound to die game.
When he had lost all the checks he could
cts for the thirteenth time, and was still dead
broke with no prospect of winning out unless
the house would play for pistols, happy
thought struck him. A deep drawn lnspira-
ton, a general moistening of the mouth, a
convulsive working of the nose and an un-
natural rumble in the throat presaged an i'm
portant deliverance of some kind, and with
the eyes of the entire crowd fixed inquiringly
upon him, he belched forth steaming set of
gold-mounted false teeth.
"There," said he to the colored boy in
waiting, "take them teeth to some pawn
broker and see what he will give you on
them; amt done with this here game yet,
by damned sight" The boy returned with
$40 bill, but this revenue had barely put
him in fighting trim again when the ravenous
monster with which he was doing battle de-
prived him of his weapons at a single blow.
He was "whipsawed' on the first two cases.
"Well, it does beat hi" he is reported to
have remarked, as he received this financial
blow, chow many bets a man can lose. The
dealer that had made such turn as that in
Kentucky would have had to leave the State
will now go out and do little trading for
myself" He retired for a short time, and
returned with a few dollars, for which he had
sacrificed his overcoat. He lost the overcoat
ON another "game keard," and likewise his
undercoat which soon followed the former
SdTIncut IO luc SiSu VI tIe tuIee UdllS.
| Nothing was now left him but a rough cloak
which the kind-hearted pawnbroker had
loaned him until he should redeem his other
articles of wearing apparel, and his vest and
cravat. These were soaked to a far distant
money lender, and the proceeds duly disap-
pearing from the "big square," he was ad-
judged complete bankrupt, and assigned to
prominent seat among the high players of
former times.
About o'clock in the morning, it is said,
when all the players had deserted the room,
and the dealers were counting up the gains
of the day, in the dim light of the reduced
gas, a dull-eyed shrivelled old man, with
sunken jaws and attenuated frame, sat shiver-
ing at the fatal table, intently gazing upon
his last stab, and mumbling a complaint to
himself that elf he had had money, and
played the last deal to double out, he would
have had many check now." 1t was the
once robust and noble-looking Kentuckian.
He was a total wreck, but, he thanked his
Maker, still a " thoroughbred"