The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-12
New York SUM-


other afternoon trying to assemble
enough likely looking insitters for a
little game of draw at one of the
Paradise Row cottages for bachelors.
1t was a bit early in the Old White
season, and most of the regulars,
some of whom have been battling
away at each other in the Old White
poker game for forty summers, were
still absent.
The difficulty encountered in getting
| round table bunch together reminded
Colonel John Taylor of Cincinnati of
story.
1--WE got Kentucky crony," he
said, who would rather play poker
than sip mint juleps on a second story
piazza, and l can't make it any strong
er than that, seeing that he was born
and raised in the Blue Grass country.
| For all that. he still plays the barn
yard game and ne isn't very lucky.
He was ordered by his medical man
| to take a voyage to Europe a few sum
mers ago for his health and he ran up
| TO Cincinnati and dragged me into it..
| 1 figured that it would be the decent
! thing, anyhow, to go along with him
| and protect him from the poker
sharks, for l knew that if he went
alone he'd be liable to sit into games
with people that carried their bur-
glars kits right in their hands.
| well, l had to do everything but
! beat him on the head to keep him out
of a couple of perfectly palpable
poker deadfalls on the train ride to
New York, and at the New York hotel
| had to keep a hold of his arm every
minute while he was awake to prevent
| him from organizing himself into a
| committee of one to form impromptu
draw fiestas from the gang of sharp
eyed good thing grafters that were
hanging around the corridors of the
hostelry waiting for nothing better
| than marks of the cut and style of
my Kentucky friend.
ION the steamer it was still worse,
| for he's got a sort of frank, come on
| way about him that caused the card
! sharks who were making the voyage to
gaze at him with positive hunger in
! their eyes Three or four of them did
essay to buzz him to the sitting in
point, but 1 suppose my glares fright
ened them away. My friend looked
at me reprOachfully when 1 took these
| steps to protect him.
But, for all my wisdom, I myself
was fooled by a couple of the poker
| fanciers on the third day out. Began
talking with a pair of substantial
looking chaps of thirty or so at dinner
on that day. One of them said he
was a commission merchant in Cleve-
land, and he ratified off the names OF
a lot of Ohio people whom 1 knew
Agreeable fellow. The other one said
he was a government official in Wash
ington and had decent ways about
him, too.
After luncheon that third day, no.
ticing that my friend was still glancing
! wolfishly into the card room every
time we passed it on our post prandia
constitutional, 1 inadvertently said Il
him:
Major, 1 don't want to subject yoI
to any deprivations of any sort or
this trip, but If you must and vii
frivol around with cards why dom
you exhibit enough perception to picl
out as fellow players a couple Of
obviously square men like those tive
young fellows we were talking witt
at Iuncheon?
Il hadn't got the words out of m,
mouth before he released himself from
2 my clutch and started aft at a sort o
+, ship lOpe.
Wonder where 1 can find 'em
he said, and then 1 had to trOt afte
him and presently we came upon tn
two agreeable chaps leaning over tn
= aft rail, and my friend, without an,
beating around the bush, suggested
. little game of $40 limit to them Bot
said they were a bit rusty at the game
. but they were willing, just to glid
away the time
t And so we began the four-hande,
seance, playing with a stripped deck
. everything out of the deck down TO tn
! sixes-so as to save all the dealing
!; that an all jackpot game involves il
! a four-handed sitting when the Who'll
pack is used. The stripped gam
is pretty hot, seeing that at tina
I game threes are. imbecile, a straigh
, just foolish and a small fully only fai
to middling; but it's as fair for on
as for another when all hands ar
used to the values of the cards.
MY Kentucky friend was the hap
piest human being l ever saw in m
j life when we began the game, an
when he went right out in front frOr
the tap of the drum, hoeing in ali @
It the money in sight he positively shon
with joy. He continued to enjoy him
n self just as much when the It'd
turned against him.
1T wasn't until the game was thre
6 or four of the afternoon hours oil
that l caught the man who pretende
: to be a Cleveland commission man q
an adroit bit of juggle cheating. II
q was sitting at the right of his com
panion, and it was gradually borne i
- Illdl WIell ne u6dlt the caro-
he paid a lot of attention out of til
L left hand corner of his eye to the caro-
he was dishing to his mate, who O
n his part picked the cards up one b
one as they were dealt-an onery praC
tice even for a square player-so thu
Il the man dealing them could get til
right kind of a peek.
:. Now it's pretty easy to fill anotht
mans hand when you're playing wit
y stripped deck if you've got the m,
=, chanical sleight of hand to get ava
with it after you see what your con
panion in crime has got in his fis
The man who was accidentally c
purpose showing his hand to the dea
h er kept up a great line of convers;
a ton, directed at myself and my Kei
is lucky friend, while the play / w;
10 watchful for came off, but it didn
y serve.
re He discarded one, and the dealer,
10 discarding, made a lightning flick Of
y card from his hand on to the top of Il
main pack. That was the card to fill h
v. mates flush, and with the strip,
ID deck a flush beats full house. I didr
4 say word, but I gave my Kentucl
friend a kick on the leg under the [