that might be going on, when it must be done so cleverly that
experienced gamblers, watching a man closely, fail to see anything
wrong."

"I quite understand that; but one of my men has made a study of the
various methods employed by gamblers to cheat, and although it would
take you years to learn how to do it yourself, a few hours' instruction
from him would at least put you up to some of their methods, and enable
you to know where to look for cheating. The man is now waiting in the
next room, and if you will take two or three hours daily with him, say
for a week, you ought to be able to detect the doings of these fellows
when to others everything seems right and above board. You may have no
inclination for cards, but knowledge of that sort is useful to anyone
in society, here or anywhere else, and may enable him either to save his
own pocket or to do a service to a friend."

Mark was greatly interested in the tricks the man showed him. At first
it seemed to him almost magical, after he himself had shuffled the cards
and cut them the dealer invariably turned up a king. Even admitting he
might have various places of concealment, pockets in the lining of the
sleeve, in the inside of the coat, and in various other parts of
the dress, in which cards could be concealed and drawn out by silken
threads, it did not seem possible that this could be done with such
quickness as to be unobserved. It was only when his teacher showed him,
at first in the slowest manner, and then gradually increasing his speed,
that he perceived that what seemed impossible was easy enough when the
necessary practice and skill had been attained. The man was indeed an
adept at a great variety of tricks by which the unsuspecting could be
taken in.

"I ought to know," he said. "I was for three years in a gambling house
in Paris, where every other man was a sharper. I have been in places of
the same sort in Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Italy. At first I was
only a boy waiter, and as until evening there was nothing doing at these
places, men would sometimes amuse themselves by teaching me tricks, easy
ones to begin with, and when they saw I was sharp and quick handed they
went on. After a time I began to work as a confederate, and at last on
my own account; but I got disgusted with it at last. A young fellow shot
himself at the table of the gambling house at Rome, and at another place
I was nearly killed by a man who had lost heavily--do you see, it h