Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-22
A Five.Handed Session at a Local
Table.
LINE ON OFF-SIDE PLAYS
Some Sad Poker Lying That Beat the
Washington Record for Scan
dalous Conduct.

Since Marse Henry Watterson developed
| that penchant for spending most of his time
| anon the Isles of Greece. the Isles of
Greece. where burning Sappho loved and
| sung, and at Capri. and Monte Carlo, and
| Malta, and the rest of those lotus-eating
\ lands Of the always afternoon. haven't had
| much chance to keep line on his poker
habits. but in the old years l used to mingle
| up lot with him at S. and $40 limit and
once in while the lid-off kind when every
\ body felt lucky" observed a distinguished re-
tired officer of the navy. Kentuckian
| Whether he plays the game or not
| 1 think Marse Henry will always remember
one shocking bluffing seance at the rooms
| of the late Senator Isham G Harris Of
! Tennessee, something over a dozen years
| ago.
1T was five-handed session. and three
! Of the five men who sat in are now dead.
| Marse Henry and myself being the sur
| vivors. Robert G. Ingersoll was one OF
| the party. He was in Washington to fill
| lecture engagement. Marse Henry had
come up from Louisville with the late Col.
Pepper. the distilier. just to look around
big big dome dom NJ" I attend& Inserselrs lecture
with Col. Watterson and Col. Pepper. and
after the lecture we picked Ingersoll up
We talked it all over inside of an hour
| and then somebody suggested that we
swoop upon Senator Harris rout him out
of bed if he'd turned in and hector him
into playing a little game of draw with
us. We all knew that it wouldn't take
| much bullyragging to get the fine old Ten
nesseean into game of poker, no matter
| how soundly he might be sleeping. for no.
| body more dearly loved pokerishness than
did Isham G. almost up to the day of his
death.
$50 we descended upon him shortly be-
| fore midnight in a barouche, and we found
him and doing He resting MS
| mind with a little light mental regalement
| before going to bed-that is to say. ne
was reading a.. few v, pages hs pd from Emprs
He was pleased to be bounced upon in that
| impromptu way and we'd hardly mentioned
poker before the good old boy had the
round table in the middle of the room UNI
der the chandelier and the chips all sorted
out.
'"The only two in the party who had any
sort of recent familiarity with each others
brand of draw-for 1t had been a long time
since I'd sat in at a session with Col Wat
| terson-were Col. Pepper and Senator Har-
ris who were old combatants with each
other at the game. 1t soon became e,as m NAM
| tor Harris. marked as disgraceful bluffer
and that Senator Harris had Col Pepper
charted out as aify booster on sets and
sequences Of nothings
A Poker Style.
ITO give an example. Col. Pepper opened
| q natural jackpot a pair of knaves. None
of the rest of US, except Senator Harris.
| had thing to linger with, and SO we
dropped. But the Tennessee senator, who
was the dealer. reckoned that his were suf-
fcently pleasant looking to make 1t $50
more-our limit that night was S20-for his
| friend Pepper to draw tickets.
col. Pepper was there.
GLOW many?' inquired the senator,
ready to dish out cards.
.sCnl Pannar Zed refleCttyelY at the cell
ing and calculated that he might just as Well
struggle along, the best he knew how, on
what he already had. The senator pleaded
with him pathetically to take few, ad-
vising him earnestly that he'd need 'em,
| but Col. Pepper was resolute. Then the
senator laid the deck by without helping
and forth five or six times. Col: Pepper
was the first to explode. He called Senator
Harris.
:" That's good sadly observed Senator
Harris, squeezing his cards into the deck.
but all the same. 1 hate to see a gentle
! man from the state of Kentucky play such
Chinese poker and he gazed with 1neffapie
disgust at the pair Of jacks spread out by
Col Pepper. That's only a sample of the
way Col. Pepper and Senator Harris tried
to rake each other over from the outset,
and the showing was instructive to the rest
81 found 1t rather hard to penetrate Col.
Ingersolrs game but I derived that he was
about the same kind Of old army-game poker
player as 1 was-that is to say. that he
drew to his papers and played them only
for what he thought them worth, even In
a game in which there were at least two
perfectly obvious and braZen buffers. But
along toward the middle or the sitting l
caught Col Ingersoll in a red-handed eff
fort to tom-toTl me to the bad lands We
were the only two in. and Ia started out
with trio OF deuces. He took one and
then began to slam the limit at me. The
way the cards were running the three
deuces looked pretty good to me, and l
raped the limit right back at him. though
1 confess that 1 was more than little
afraid of him. not having nailed him In
the act of overplaying his hand up to that
time. His complaisance over his papers
finally got me well-nigh stampeded.
when I called him he threw his papers
into the Stag and endeavored to direct the
conversation to an outside channel. He
used that superior please forget 1T manner.
but I'd paid to have look. and SO picked
his cards up and turned them over His
hand was a distorted nine-high straight.
And so had him tabled too.
~ wouldn't have thought 1t of you
said to him with imitation reproacn1uiness.
A Pernicious Example.
SITS the pernicIous example Pepper and
Harris have been setting u.s. he replied.
looking sheepish.
Presently Marse Henry was caught with
the goods In an attempted steal by Col
Panner and so he Joined the little buffer 8
list l tried to run away with something
myself not long after that, and SO there
were the whole five Of us under deep and
dark suspicion.
.sBut the tall work commenced when the
last double round of jackpots began, about
3 o'clock in the morning. Col. Pepper
raised Senator Harris out on pot that the
senator had opened on two pairs, and then,
in tossing away his cards accidentally
faced them, showing that all he had pos
sessed was something punctured. Senator
Harris quickly took his revenge on the dis
tiler by stampeding Col. Pepper out of a.
pot that he himself had cracked with pair
of queens The senator only drew two
cards that time and when Col. Pepper
wilted the senator leaned over to me in his
citation and showed me his spread-out hand.
Remarkable draw, wasn't it? he said
to me- His hand consisted of three dia-
monds and two spades, and none Of them
resembled each other.
Phenomenal draw said I, but the
brazen effrontery of the old Tennesseean all
but stunned me, especially his nerve in
showing me how he had chiseled Col. Pep
per out of his own pot.
Il dealt the final Jackpot of the game.
Everybody Clipped in $40, and agreed
that that last one could be opened for the
size of the pot, 500, and that the bets
also could be made of the size OF the pot.
We were all pretty well evened up on the
and nothing very exciting had ham