The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-13

"It's amazing" said the venerable
ex-veteran of the Northwest mining
camps in tones of bland philosophy,
how person can start a little game,
innocentlike, in one part of the world
and have it cause all sorts of good and
bad luck to some one else on the other
side of the globe, whom the first party
probably never heard of. There was a
man named Du Mahrea, or some such
name, who wrote book called "Trilby'
some years ago. Did this Du Mahrea
have any grudge against old Bill Steb-
bins? 1t amt likely he ever heard of
Bill. Yet this ''Trilby" tale kas the
cause of Bill getting pretty well pound
ed up and making him lose his faith
in anything he read in print. 1t was a
good deal Bills own fault, for he ought
to have known that there was a mighty
heap of difference in playing the Sven
gall act on girl in Paris and persuad-
ing big Dan Evans that he didn't know
poker hand when he saw it.
"This 'Trilby" book was left in camp
by a coast gambler whom the boys
caught dealing from the bottom, and
whom they helped to a place where he
wouldn't care for books or any other
infiammable material. The boys weren't
very strong on the literary game in
Deep Gulch, and the book was tossed
about camp until one day when Bill
Stebbins, feeling too tired to work, and
not having enough money to sit in a
game of poker, happened to pick it up
and began reading it. After Bill had
read little time it was plain that he
mad become nightly interested. He
didn't put down the book until he had
read 1t from cover to cover. Then he
went to the edge of the camp where he
wouldn't be interrupted, and sat down
with the air Of man who has an i'm
portant intellectual problem to wrestle
with. The boys, naturally supposing
that he was thinking up some plan
for collecting the coin of the realm
without working for it, respected his
occupation and didn't bother him.
But Bill had a regular Napoleon Of
finance scheme working in his brain
and that night he sprung it on his
partner, Dick Kelsey. First he told
Dick about the book, and how a dago
named Svengali had been able to hyp-
notize young girl named Trilby so as
10 make her obey his will, which, in
this case, happened to be the coppering
of the entire outfit at the song and
MARBLE game.
SVengaIi's Lost Opportunities.
Now said Bill to his partner. after
he had explained the principles of the
game, now it certainly seems to me
that this Svengali had the making of a
great play in his hand and simply
threw 1T away. Instead of hypnotizing
young girl so that she could make a
lot Of noise with her voice, he ought
to have hypnotized a man with a big
stake so that he would think he was
holding four flush, while Mr.. Sven
gall was there with all the aces. Seems
TO me that Sven had the chance of a
nfetlme and threw it away
wen, Dick Kelsey was considerably
puzzledewhat to think 1t was all down
IN the book in plain print, and at the
ul1ne both Dick and Bill believed that
ahyIhing they saw in print was COS pei
ruin. YET neither of them could fig
ure out why, if such a thing were pos
sible, 1t hadn't been tried before.
IL the thing could be done that
way, said Dick, why didn't old Sven
walk up to one of the men who ran the
Parls bank and wiggle his fingers be-
fore his face, look him straight in the
eyes, and exert his will power until
ne had MIN hypnotized, and then say
You owe me million and I'd thank
you for it now?"'
BIZ Stebbins couldn't explain this
put he felt that the game was worth
trying. In the book young Miss TriI-
by was suffering from a toothache or
pam OF some sort and she went to old
sven. and he handed her out a bunch
VI the hypnotlc influence, which stop
ped the pain. OF course to give tbe
thing fair trial it was necessary To
follow out the exact programme of the
book. and this seemed sort of hard
for the Deep Gulch boys were not offer
sick. But by great good luck a few
days after Bill had begun to plan his
hypnotic career big Dan Evans han
pened to have bad toothache. Here
was Bits chance. II he cured Dams