The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-06-27
DETECTIVE HAS
CURIOUS RING
1t Contains Repeating Watch
and Sharper Won Many
Bets.

Washington detective was driving a
visiting detective from New York
around, showing him the city, the other
afternoon. The horse hitched to the
buggy was skittish, and the Washing
ton detective was too busy with his
! hands to look at his watch
What time is it?" he esked the New
| York detective.
| The Manhattan sIeuth pushed an al
most invisible lever on the side of the
setting of a good sized cameo ring that
he wore on the third finger of his left
hand. Then he placed his left hand at
his ear and listened for a moment.
Seventeen minutes past 3 O'clock"
| he replied to the Washington MATHS
query.
That's not so bad, either" said the
Washington man, viewing the New
Workers. move with an interested eye.
'SuppoSing you go ahead and tell me
about it. can see that that big ring
Of yours is a repeating watch, Of
course. Let's have the rest of it,
WELL" said the New York sleuth,
this ring and repeating watch COM
bined belonged to one Of the most noto-
card players who used to work the At
lantic steamers. He's been dead for five
years now, and, as his family are pref
ty good people, and one of his sons is
an officer in the regular army there's
no need to mention his name. He was
the champion Of his class, though.
This card shark had this ring that
I'm wearing made in Switzerland for
| a purpose. He made many thousands
of dollars with it. His game was this
way:
| of cfoo
| on which he was a passenger would get
| together in the smoking room or card
room and begin to bet on the number
of revolutions for the for'ard screw per
| hour, on the weather to prevail for
next day, on the number of knots to
| be covered that day, or an any old
thing, after the manner of men a-voy-
aging, this card shark would gently
| slam in with a crack to the effect that
| there wasn't one man out of a hundred
| that could properly count off a minute
that is, that could exactly, or any
thing like exactly, apprehend the pas
sage of so seconds. This, of course,
would lead to a discussion, and the
sharper would undertake to prove his
statement by referring to the fact that
| few referees of prize fights are able to
count 10 seconds over a PROSTATE
fighter with anything approximating
accuracy. Then there'd be more chaw
on this point, and finally the shark
would suggest that all hands present
chip into a pool, say, of 500 each, the
whole bundle to be walked away by
the man in the pool who could count
the nearest to a minute The crowd
never failed to bite.
NOW" went on the New York de-
tective, ''if you want to experiment on
this you let your wife or some one
hold watch for you and you try to
call the turn when a minute is up. IL
you come any nearer than five seconds,
one way or the other, to the minute
without lot Of practice, you may re-
gard yourself as a man with a pretty
good idea Of time. There are few
things harder to do than to agree with
the second hand of a watch in count
ing SO seconds.
well, they'd all go into the pool.
and some disinterested chap would be
brought in to hold the ticker and each
mans count would be set down on
paper. AS the man who suggested the
pool, the card shark would modestIy
wait until they'd all had their trials
before he essayed to count his minute.
He'd rest his head in his left hand and
watch them amusedly while they tried
to make an even-up minute with the
watch, and it rarely happened that
any Of them got within better than
three seconds of it, one way or the
other They were generally at least
that much shy or that much overdue.
Still leaning his head in his left
hand, this cheerful worker of the
cfca 1Q7.cs fnv- hi fIyr-y nd
then, with this almost inaudible-but
audible enough-bit of a ticker right
close to his ear, he'd wade in and
count sixty seconds to the dot almost.
He never did it precisely to the dot,
because he didn't want to excite suS-
picion, but he always romped under the
wire winner by a second or SO from
all the rest of the bunch in the pool.
AS l say, he won thousands at this
scheme, and only one of his victims
ever suspected that he had an inside
way of keeping tab on his minutes.
This only one happened to be a
Scotland Yard man. Now, as you
know, Scotland Yard men are gener-
ally pretty obtuse and Opaque and a
few other things like that, but this
Scotland Yard man was an exception
to the rule, and he tumbled to the card
sharper's little graft. The Scotland
Yard detective was in minute-guess-
ing pool for a 6 5 note himself, and
the attitude Of the short card man in
counting off his nearly precise sixty
seconds struck him as peculiar. He
didn't say anything right then, but
after the cheerful worker had gone out,
after gathering up the pool, he men
toned his suspicious to a couple of the
other victims. When the short-car
man returned to the smoking cabin
the Scotland Yard man, sure that he
was right, walked up behind the
sharper, who was sitting down, and
suddenly grabbed his left wrist, say
ing:
Lets have an inspection of that
ring"
The sharper promptly jumped to his
feet and knocked the Scotland Yard
man fiat. The cat was out Of the bag,
however, and all the men in the smolx-
ing room who'd been in the minute
guessing pool called upon the sharper
to show up the ring. With very much
aggrieved air the shark pulled off hIs
ring and threw it on the table, pro-
testing in a dignified manner that they
had no right to doubt his integrity.
When they'd got through examining
the outside of the ring without finding
anything unusual about 1t, the sharper
took it back, laid it on the table again,
got hammer and smashed it with a
blow. 1t was just q plain cameo ring.
that was all, with no works or any
thing else inside of 1t. This sharper
was a wise guy in his day and date,
you see, and he had a duplcate-aS
far as the outside went-of his watch
ring along with him for just such an
emergency. The Scotland Yard man
got the boot, Of course, and the sharp
was restored to the favor Of the men
who'd suspected him on the detectives
say so, and was able to pose before
them as an outraged man for the re-