Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1892-02-26


could not keep bis winnings in his pocket
for tweuty-four hours at a time. He always
returned to the table to lose them. just
as surely as Fortune kissed his homely
face one day she would turn round and
slap it for the next four or five. Then Plug
would have to resort to the disagreeable
shift of borrowing from his luckier
brothers, and be did this so often that
there were very few indr ed of the pale
faced, white handed gentlemen Of for
tune, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
who did not have Plug Hankins on their
books for sums varying from one to one
hundred dollars Another singular fea-
ture of the case was the fact that scien.
tifically he was one of the best card
players who ever sat before green table.
More than that. he was cool and brave.
lie never spoke of his losses, and never
cxultcd over his winnings if he happened
to make any. lie was sober and free
from nearly every vice save the passion
axe desire to gamble that had ruled his
life from boyhoOd Other men made
fortunes and lost them every month, but
Plug Hankins was always, to use the
phraseology Of the sporting man,
broke In time his wretched luck be-
came a jest among his fellow gamblers.
They often laughed at him openly, but
Pug himself had never been known to
laugh 1t was all dead earnest to him
the only profession he knew, and he must
make his living out of it Or
Besides his ill-fortune and his pluck
poor Plug was noted among his brethren
for one other characteristic. He was as
phenomenally homely as he was unlucky.
The gamblers pallor of his face, the
dropping eyelids, the short hair, the
suuken cheeks and great ili-turned ears
made him look almost corpse-like. Aud
then there was a long scar under his left
eye where ne had been slashed by knife
on Que of the few occasions where he had
won. This, too, was a standing jest.
But Plug bore it very meekly.
There were meny who predicted that
some day Plug would make a winning
that would starte them ALL Itwas sup
posed that Plug himself looked forward
TO some such event to compensate him
for his fifteen or twenty years Of pa
tience. But the good luck never came,
and as ill-fortuue was piled upon ILL.,
fortune Plugs patience began finally to
break down, aud his natural moroseness
became almost mania. The fact was
noticed by the rest of them, but they are
not tender-h hearted men, as a rule, and
they only male their jests at his expense
the louder and mere frequent. More
than that, though, his fellow gamblers
began to be very chary about lending
him money. In fact, as rule, they
had begun to decline in no very polite
manner, and some evel went so far as to
advise him to quit the business and get
Job somewhere digging dirt
1t was in frame of mind born Of
such treatment at the hands Of men who
had previously been more than kind to
him that Plug stood one midnight on the
euro at the corner of Twenty--street
and Broadway. 1t was the first midnight
in many year that Plug had not been
scated before dirty green table waiting
for the luck that was to make all things
right, aud meantime losing what little
money be could manage by hook or
crook to get hold Of. With his hands
thrust into his great pockets aud his
hat pulled dowr over his eyes, he looked
the very picture of detection as he gazed
at the gutter under his feet. Even the
policeman on the beat had to smile when
be saw him, and walked by with the
mental ejaculation, Busted" Indeed
he was s'busted." He had gone with
out his meals all that day and the day
before in order that he might stake the
money at faro. He had asked every one
he knew to lend him money and had
been refused, and he hadn't cent. He
had looked forward to this climax OF ILL.,
fortune for good many years. 1t was