The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-11
An OLD DEBT
n PAID AT POKER.
The Reformed Mississippi River
Gambler and the Tempting
Rolf Of Money.

You may talk abou poker o said
the planter, tinkling the Toe in his julep
but the time when hat playful sport ran
blood red was during the old Mississippi
River steamboat days. And I am here Ia
state that though the gentlemen taking
part in 1t were remarkably quick on the
trigger there was a lot Of crooked business
that went OF about the tables.
MY father used TO tell one yarn that /
happen to know Is true. A celebrated
sharper-we will call BIN Jack Curtis
who later had his lights put out In a saloon
in Natchez, was In cahoots with another
man named-well, Bill Bartlett will do.
They played from New Orleans to st. Louis
and they had the slickest combination
schemes you yer saw. In good cotton
years their winnings ran way up into the
big thousands.
Jack was q free spender, but Bill was
close listed. He had some shreds OF pom
science, I reckon, and wanted to save money
and settle down to a decent life. SO finally
he and Jack split up; but the break didn't
happen in a good way,
Jack had been In a game the day before
and had won $500 before Bill came in. When
they squared up Jack threw in the four hun
bred with the other winnings and divided
the whole business.
The next day Jack went 1t alone
again, and dropped a thousand. He
wanted Bin to share the loss. Bill wouldn't
do it. They got hot, passed nasty words,
and finally smashed partnership.
They half way made up afterward,
though Bill quit the game, got religion,
and bought a big plantation neal Baton
Rouge, and Jack swore by all that was holy
that he'd get that Ave hundred some day
and more with 1t.
Well, two or three years rolled on, and
Bill decided to sell out and move up to st.
Louis. So he advertised his plantation for
sale. He had a number of bids, but the
best was from an old gray whiskered geezer,
IA unworldly as a lamb. who offered him
$4,000 more for it than anybody else did.
Bill struck a bargain, and turned over on
Monday. The old boy skinned off a roll
OF gold certificates for the whole am cunt,
and he and Bill fixed it to go up to st. Louis
on the Tuesday boat. Bills eyes popped,
l may remark here, when he saw the size
Of the wad the old boy pushed back into
his wallet with the deed Of sale.
The fBt night on the boat Bill wandered
about like a lost soul. Everybody was
busy at the tables except the geezer and
hhhCOli AO AObehI n q OIntItb CdI
against temptation, but every time be
winked his eyes he saw the old boys roll of
yellow ones again and he thought what
easy picking it would be if he could only
get a partner.
However. he stayed out hat night:
but the next day who should come on board
but Jack Curtis. That was too much. Bill
put up a feeble struggle until dusk when
the groups began to form in the saloon.
Then he couldn't stand it any more.
He tool Jack aside and put him wise to
the golden wad and the bunch Of spinach
protecting it Jack was mighty distant at
first. He said he had about quit the game
himself, and had a little plantation OF his
own in sight down the river. But when
Bill showed him the old boy pulling his
whiskers under a deck lamp, Jacks scruples
caved.
It's a 60 he said.
so Bill introduced them and proposed a
small session. The old man said he didn't
know much about cards, but it was 80 all
fired dull he might ar we'll do that az any
thing else, so Bill picked up two greenhorns
from New Orleans to act as dummies, and
they began rafting the bones.
The play ran easily for a while. the old
boy winning. That was always the policy
Jack and Bill followed. Then after n couple
of hundred had changed hands, Bill gave
Jack the wink, and things fires hened up.
Somehow, though, they didn't freshen
the right way. The old fellow kept on
winning, and by midnight he had Bill n
thousand IN the hole and Jack somewhere
around eight hundred. He didn't know
beans about the game, but his luck was
something stupendous.
Bill and Jack started plunging. They
rolled out stacks of chips and threw on
piles OF bills until everybody around quit
the other games and gathered around the
table watching the play.
My father was one OF the bystanders,
end he says the crowd actually cheered
when the geezer cackled joyously and
raked in a pot. The old boy couldn't help
winning. The money and chips mounted
up before him in heaps.
When the sun poured through the win
dows and the party broke up Jack cashed
in the last dollar in his clothes, and Bill
staggered out of the saloon, a ruined man
stripped Of every cent he had in the world.
"Everybody's sympathies, though, were
with the old man, and nobody spent a bit
OF pity on the ghastly looking losers who
went ashore at st. Louis.
That night when my father was
going up TO bed in his hotel he passed a
room where a streak Of light showed under
the door, and within he heard a man say:
That makes your even forty thousand
Yes answered another voice, damn
him. I guess that he has paid back that
five hundred now-with interest
My father tiptoed on. 1t was lone
OF his business, but he swears the voices
we're Jacks and the old geezer's."
MIR Buckley ON the Ysnovstone.