The Cordova daily times., 1918-04-15

out Eyes down, my lucky lads"
All noise ceases and every one is at
tenti0n.
The croupier places his hand in the
bag and draws forth a numbered
square ana Immediately calls out the
number. The man who owns the card
with that particular number on If.
covers the square with match. The
one who covers the fifteen numbers on
his card first shouts House" The
other packer Immediately comes over
to him and verifies the card nv calling
out the numbers thereon to the man
with the bag. As each number is
called he picks it out of the ones
picked from the bag and says, Right"
If the count Is right he shouts. House
correct, pay the lucky gentleman, and
sell him a card for the next school,"
The lucky gentleman" generally buys
one unless he has a miser trace in
his veins.
Then another collection is made. a
school formed, and they carry on with
the game.
The caller-out has many nicknames
for the numbers such as "Kelly's Eve"
for one, Legs Eleven" for eleven,
"Clickety-click" for sixty-sIx, or "Top
of the house" meaning ninety.
The game is honest and quite en-
1oyable. Sometimes you have fourteen
numbers on your card covered and
you are waiting for the fifteenth to be
called. In an imploring voice you call
out, Come on, Watkins, chum, I'm
sweating on Kelly's Eye"
Watkins generally replies, "Well,
keep out Of draft, you'll catch cold"
Another game is "PontoOn," played
with cards; 1t is the same as our
BLACK jack" or "Twenty-one."
A card game called Drag" is also
popular. Using casino deck, the
dealer deals each player three cards.
1t is similar to our poker, except for
the fact that you only use three cards
and cannot draw. The deck Is never
shuffied until a man shows three of q
kind or "prlle" as 1t is called The
value of the hands are high card,
pair, run, flush or three of a kind
or 'prile." The limit Is generally
penny, so it is hard to win a fortune.
The next In popularity is card
game called NAP" 1t Is we'll named.
Every time played it went to sleep.
Whist and solo whist are played by
the highbrows of the company.
When the gamblers tire of all other
games they try Banker and Broker"
spent week trying to teach some
of the Tommies how to play poker, but
because | won thirty-five francs they
declared that they didn't "fawncy" the
game.
Tommy plays few card games; the
general run never heard of poker, eu-
chre, seven up, or pinochle. They have
game similar to pinOchIe called
Royal Bezique," but few know how to
play it.
Generally there are two decks of
cards in a section, and in a short time
they are so dog-eared and greasy, you
can hardly tell the ace of spades from
the ace of hearts. The owners of these
decks sometimes cOndescend to lend
them after much cOaxing
SO you see, Mr. Atkins has his fun
mixed in with his hardships and, con-
trary to popular belief, the rank and
file of the British army in the trenches
is one big happy family. Now In Vir-
ginia at school, | was fed on old Nc
Guffys primary reader, which gave me
an opinion of an Englishman about
equal to a '76 Minute Mans backed up
by Sim Feiner's. But l found Tom
my to be the best of mates and gem
tleman through and through. He never
thinks of knocking his officers. If one
makes costly mistake and Tommy
pays with his blood, there Is no gen.
eral condemnation Of the officer. He
Is just pitied. 1t Is exactly the same
as IT was with the Light Brigade at
BaIaclaVa, to say nothing of Gallipoli,
Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Personally
| remember a little incident where
twenty of us were sent on a trench
raid, only two of us returning, but
will tell this story later on.
said 1t was big happy family, and
so 1t Is, but as in all happy families,
there are servants, so in the British
army there are also servants, officers
servants, or 30. S." as they are termed
In the American army the common
name for them is dog robbers" From
a controversy in the English papers,
Winston Churchill made the state
ment, as far as / can remember, that
the officers servants in the British
forces totaled nearly two hundred
thousand. He claimed that this re-
moved two hundred thousand excep-
tionally good and well-trained fighters
from the actual firing line, claiming
that the officers, when selecting a man
for servants duty, generally picked the
man who had been out the longest and
knew the ropes.
But from my observation l find that
a large percentage of the servants do
WAEa