ticed how eagerly my thin guest
attacked my eggs, and marvelled somewhat at the scanty pile of shells
before him. My suspicions once excited, I soon fathomed my Yankee
friend's dodge. As soon as he had devoured the eggs, he conveyed
furtively the shells beneath the table, and distributed them
impartially at the feet of his companions. I gave my little black maid
a piece of chalk, and instructions; and creeping under the table, she
counted the scattered shells, and chalked the number on the tail of
his coat. And when he came up to pay his score, he gave up his number
of eggs in a loud voice; and when I contradicted him, and referred to
the coat-_tale_ in corroboration of _my_ score, there was a general
laugh against him. But there was a nasty expression in his cat-like
eyes, and an unpleasant allusion to mine, which were not agreeable,
and dissuaded me from playing any more practical jokes upon the
Yankees.

I followed my brother's example closely, and forbade all gambling in
my hotel. But I got some idea of its fruits from the cases brought to
me for surgical treatment from the faro and monte tables. Gambling at
Cruces, and on the Isthmus generally, was a business by which money
was wormed out of the gold-seekers and gold-finders. No attempt was
made to render it attractive, as I have seen done elsewhere. The
gambling-house was often plainer than our hotels; and but for the
green tables, with their piles of money and gold-dust, watched over by
a well-armed determined banker, and the eager gamblers around, you
would not know that you were in the vicinity of a spot which the
English at home designate by a very decided and extreme name. A Dr.
Casey--everybody familiar with the Americans knows their fondness for
titles--owned the most favoured table in Cruces; and this, although he
was known to be a reckless and unscrupulous villain. Most of them knew
that he had been hunted out of San Francisco; and at that time--years
before the Vigilance Committee commenced their labours of
purification--a man too bad for that city must have been a prodigy of
crime: and yet, and although he was violent-tempered, and had a knack
of referring the slightest dispute to his revolver, his table was
always crowded; probably because--the greatest rogues have some good
qualities--he was honest in his way, and played fairly.

Occasionally some distinguished passengers passed on the upward and
downward tides of rascality and ruffianism, that swep