Adventure, February 1917 — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Roy eatts KNEW as soon as he sat in the game that he was playing for more than the money represented in his stack of chips. He had the face of one whose ancestors hadn’t worked in their shirt sleeves for many generations, but it had a worn, desperate, tense expression. Even then his face looked youthful. He wasn’t more than ney three or twenty-four. They were not all thoroughbreds who came to Johnny Blix’s snug little apartment; but most of them had money. I got a good deal of it. Johnny thought he was in- debted to me for certain minor favors in the past which he appreciated far more than I - thought they were worth. He knew that poker was more than a science withme. Itwasanart. Thesand- papered tips of my fingers were almost like eyes, and I could feel and understand faint indentations on the cards that not many people could have discovered without a strong magnifying glass. Johnny was a square gambler—as square as professional gamblers ever are, and any stranger really got a run for his money on his roulette table, though of course if the luck got to breaking too hard against the house, Johnny would press a little button with his toe and that made it very hard for the lucky man to put his money on the color or number that won. — Nor did I play poker for my health. I wasn’t hoggish about winning, and didn’t attract attention to my consistent luck, but with the minimum of effort, and some enjoyment, I managed to have an income somewhat above the demands I made on it. It wasn’t every night or every week that I marked or held out cards. I knew and could practise about every trick that was ever devised to make the other fellow lose at poker; and many of them were what is called ethical. In poker, as in law, there are certain rules laid down by which you can cheat the other fellow. Some men use their face as a mirror and reflect into it the quality of the hands they hold. The young aristocrat was not one of these. He was inscrutable as an oriental. He played his cards well but desperately. I went after him. [I liked him, but I was de- termined to break him. I knew from the way he was playing that there was some- thing back of the game, and I was inter- ested. Some people go to the movies for their excitement and amusement. I like to take mine off the streets and hot from the hearts of people who are living tragedies. Into some of these little dramatic episodes I now and then force myself as a super. Every time the boy stayed in a pot where I happened to have an interest, I boosted. I didn’t win them all, or didn’t get a winning: percentage, but that was_an incident. I wanted to make him lose. It was a stiff game, a big game even for Johnny’s where the sté I have seen honest men_win up into four II? ibook es were always high. * (E@) | (6)