The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-05-04
RUBAIYAT OF POKER.
From the New Y0FK sun.

From the New York Sun.
 The first product of the Bandar Log Press has just been issued and Is a Poker Rubaiyat," book of verses by which Kirke La Shelle seeks to recover some of the money that he passed across the table in the experimental hours from which he now culls these flowers of poesy.
 In the long, long ago, when Mr. La ShelIe was a theatrical press agent he tried poker as a means of increasing his income. He tried 1t wherever his travels took him seven days ahead of the show.
 He tried 1t In Peekskill, In Bunalo, through savage nights in Chicago, among the celery sellers of Kalamazoo, In un- sneakable places in Denver, like the Blue Ijeht in sociesy and out of it. He played with princes and with pikers
 Reverses of fortune sometimes forced him to buy his way out of town with nun ograph passes. He played with prake- men on the trains In the Tar west anu strung his hammock in the pox oilice ol inc town opera house when hard session had removed the hotel rom the nuniper of financial possibilities.
 Now that he sees his name, arustically partitioned, shining down at him rom hillboards and theatre fronts he sums ms knowledge in a book.
 The "Poler Rubaiyat" Is Illustrated by F. Holme, who hacked his pictures out with a three-bladed jackknife on poplar lumber carted from New York to PhoenN Ariz.. for that purpose. The keyplocks for the initials were made on chalk plates and the whole was made into a book at Phoenix.
 Only 274 copies were printed or wnlcn 1o4 were sent to stockholders in the Ban dar Log Press and the rest are to be sold' There are twelve colored full page de- signs.
 ii is announced that the stockholders of the Bandar Log Press include George Ade, Richard Harding Davis, F. Peter Dunne, James H. Eckels, Charles Dana Gibson, Ebert Hubbard, Henry Hut, Augustus Thomas, Booth Tarkington ana Frank A. vanderlip.
 The first stanza of the 'Rubaiyat" was written late on the night when MT. La shelle successfully introduced the kitty 10 his own firesde and found that 1t made him good on the nights losses. He chir- rups:
 Come to the Center, for the Game is on: Chip; for pot Is never lost till won. Separate cheerfully; and if you lose, Smile. for anothers just behind this one. Come, take Hand; Forget your frigid
 Feet;
 There's Something Doing when the Greeks
 do meet;
 The Game has but little while to run And one must SOW if he would harvest
 Wheat.
 Opposite a picture of contented win ner is this stanza:
 After the Opener his Blue Chip shied Into the Pot, exultingly he cried; sswhen all the dead game Sports are
 trooping in
 Why lag the little tin horn Boys outsider
 A picture of the foolish buffer faces this verse:
 The yellow Chips men set their hearts
 upon
 Grow numerous or dwindle, and anon Like Smile upon a Buffers foolish Face Giving the Lie to Promises, are Gone.
 The sore discontent on the face of the carved player Is reflected in these lines: But much as I have sifted in my swell Assortment of Reds, Blues and Yellows well,
 I often wonder what the Bankers buy One-half so worthless as the Chips they
 sell.
 One time Dame Fortune sorely did me fout: