The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-08-10

Washington. I had never seen him be- fore, but somebody told me he was a very clever lobbyist
 Certainly he was clever. for he out shone the rest of the party in story tell ing and singing, and he did a number Of sleight-o of hand tricks at the dinner ta- ble, such as to amuse a company greatly and attract everybody's attention to the performer.
 The dinner was good one, with a suf- ficiency of capital wine. and after eating we all sat for an hour or so, smoking, singing and talking in most enjoyable fashion before anybody suggested card playing. It was suggested, however. be- fore the evening was over and two games of poker and one of whist were soon started.
 q took a hand at whist myself. though I would have preferred poker. as the chief of the engineering party was whist fiend and fourth hand was need ed. The faro bank man. Smith. was one of the quartette, and when we cut for partners, he and l were low. The chief 8 partner was clerical-iooking chap from somewhere in the North, who certainly played as poor game as l ever saw played by any one who professed a knowl- edge of cards.
 Smiths game was superb and natur- all your antagonists had no chance. This was so obvious that after three or four rubbers we were all glad to stop playing and look on at the poker.
 At one table there was nothing doing. It was a quarter limit game and about as interesting as a contest at backgamon. At the other. though. they were playing table stakes and had been at 1t long enough to get two or three hundred dol lars in circulation. though they had started with $10 apiece.
 "The club man was in this party and so was Smalley. The others were three of the engineers. all of them army o1i- cers. There was major. captain and nraN but n names now.
 Their cards had run capriciously, so that the luck had been with one and an- other from time to time, but the drum mer had been the worst hit of any. He had bought seven or eight times, and while he hadn't lost his temper he was plainly enough determined to get square if he could and was playing in dog gedly persistent fashion that was likely to put him further in a hole.
 His theory of the game seemed to be that loser should try for every chance that presented itself, and that theory doesn't seem to work well in table stakes Just as we came up to watch the play he exclaimed. almost angriy:
 '' < declare twenty more in the game and picking up his cards found four flush of diamonds
 ''It was a jack pot. and the major. who sat on his right. opened it for the size of the pot. which was $6. The drummer put in his six promptly and the captain laid down.
 ''Smalley, who was dealing. raised it six and the lieutenant laid down. So did the club man, but the major stayed, and the drummer. having now chance in $36 pot available for $6, again made good
 Tt was of course, better play than his first bet. when he was putting up six to twelve, and as I caught another glimpse of his hand I saw that he had the three to the six spot. giving him, of course, a chance for a straight flush, so l couldn't criticise his play.
 Tn the draw each man drew one. The major threw in white chip without looking at his draw. and the drummer did the same thing.
 That puzzled me for a moment but saw that what he was looking for was for Smalley to raise and that what he wanted Smalley to think was that he had two small pairs. and it struck me that was pretty good poker.