Part 8

“On the last deal I thought he had a chance, for he opened the pot for $20. It had gone around for three or four deals, so it was a good pot to start with, and after it was opened it grew rapidly. We all came in, and Harry raised it ten. George went back at him with twenty more, and we all came in.

“On the draw George took two cards, Harry two, and Eli one. The rest of us took three each, but as none of us bettered his pair, we dropped our cards, leaving the three to fight it out. George bet fifty, and Eli, who sat next, raised it fifty. Harry came in and raised it ten. It looked a little queer, but I remembered then that Harry had been playing more moderately than any of the rest of us all the evening. George put up fifty more, and Eli made good. He had filled a small flush, but sitting between two raisers he didn’t care to play too hard on it. Harry raised it ten again, and George showed his excitement plainly.

“‘A hundred better,’ he almost shouted, putting up the money.

“Eli laid his hand on the table, but Harry put up a hundred and ten.

“‘Another hundred,’ said George, now fairly trembling.

“‘Ten more,’ said Harry, as cool as ever.

“‘Five hundred better,’ exclaimed George.

“‘Ten more.’

“‘A thousand better,’ said George, and Harry hesitated.

“‘I have you beaten, George,’ he said, after a moment, ‘but I don’t want to play any higher. This is getting altogether too heavy for our party. I’ll call you.’

“‘It isn’t too heavy for me,’ said George, almost insultingly. ‘I’ll go you another thousand on my hand if you will stand it.’

“‘No,’ said Harry, still as cool as possible. ‘I won’t go any higher. I have called you.’

“George laid down an ace full, and looked with confident expectation to see Harry surrender, but instead he showed down four eights. ‘I was pretty sure,’ he said quietly.

“George’s face turned white, and we all saw that he was hard hit, though we didn’t suspect even then that it was so serious as it was.

“‘I’ll have to give you a check for that last thousand,’ he said, faltering, for he had not put up the money on the last bet. We had always settled up before separating at night, but it was not unusual for checks to pass among us, though we had never had so much money up before.

“‘That’s all right,’ said Harry, and to my surprise his voice trembled when he spoke. ‘The fact is,’ he continued after he had swallowed once or twice in the effort to get control of himself--‘the fact is, I’m not going to take your money, George. I have been playing this game for fun, and I don’t think I was doing you fellows any harm by playing with you, for I have always played square, and I’ve never taken any of your money to speak of; but the fact is, I have been a professional gambler for a year past, and I have been sailing under false colors. I don’t say that I wouldn’t do that anywhere else, but I wouldn’t do it among my old friends. Take back your money, George. I don’t believe you can afford to lose it, and I wouldn’t take it if you could.’

“This was sufficiently surprising, but what George said was even more so, to the rest of us, for we knew that he wasn’t above playing with professionals elsewhere.

“‘I wouldn’t take it back,’ he said with a sneer, ‘if the game had been above board, but if, as you say, you have been sailing under false colors, I think I can take it without any loss of self-respect.’ And he pocketed the money which Harry pushed over to him, after deducting what he himself had put in.

“It was the last game we ever played together, and we broke up with a feeling of constraint that we had never had before. Our good-nights were said in the usual words, but the tone was that of curious embarrassment. We could not feel the same toward either of the two, but I think we all felt far more respect for Harry than we did for George.

“I am quite sure we all did after we read in the papers two weeks later that George had absconded with a considerable amount of the company’s money. It appeared from the published accounts that he had been a defaulter for some months, though he had concealed the fact by falsifying his books, so that he was really playing with stolen money when he pretended a superiority to Harry.

“I never saw either of the two men again, and as I tell you, we never had another meeting of the club. As for me, I have never played poker since for any considerable stakes. When the game gets so large that it is a question of money instead of the fun of the game itself, I always drop out.”

Press of J. J. Little & Co.

Astor Place, New York

Transcriber’s Notes

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Transcriber removed duplicate chapter headings.

The floral decoration on the Title page represents a similar but angled decoration in the original book.