ome his successor did not
return to his place. He had no luck, he again said, and would not play
any more that night.

Who would accept his place and his partner? I was appealed to.

I thanked my new acquaintances, but the thing was impossible, as I had
never played Euchre, and therefore knew nothing about the game, beyond
the few points I had picked up while watching them.

"That ar awkward," said the pork-dealer. "Ain't we nohow able to get up
a set? Come, Mr Chorley--I believe that's your name, sir?" (This was
addressed to the gentleman who had risen.) "You ain't a-goin' to desart
us that away? We can't make up a game if you do?"

"I should only lose if I played longer," reiterated Chorley. "No,"
continued he, "I won't risk it."

"Perhaps this gentleman plays `whist,'" suggested another, alluding to
me. "You're an Englishman, sir, I believe. I never knew one of your
countrymen who was not a good whist-player."

"True, I can play whist," I replied carelessly.

"Well, then, what say you all to a game of whist?" inquired the last
speaker, glancing around the table.

"Don't know much about the game," bluntly answered the pork-dealer.
"Mout play it on a pinch rayther than spoil sport; but whoever hez me
for a partner 'll have to keep a sharp look-out for himself, I reckon."

"I guess you know the game as well as I do," replied the one who had
proposed it.

"I hain't played a rubber o' whist for many a year, but if we can't make
up the set at Euchre, let's try one."

"Oh! if you're goin' to play whist," interposed the gentleman who had
seceded from the game of Euchre--"if you're going to play whist, I don't
mind taking a hand at _that_--it may change my luck--and if this
gentleman has no objection, I'd like him for my partner. As you say,
sir, Englishmen are good whist-players. It's their national game, I
believe."

"Won't be a fair match, Mr Chorley," said the dealer in hog-meat; "but
since you propose it, if Mr Hatcher here--your name, sir, I believe?"

"Hatcher is my name," replied the person addressed, the same who
suggested whist.

"If Mr Hatcher here," continued white-hat, "has no objection to the
arrangement, I'll not back out. Doggoned, if I do!"

"Oh! I don't care," said Hatcher, in a tone of reckless indifference,
"anything to get up a game."

Now, I was never fond of gambling, either amateur or otherwise, but
circumstances had made me a tolerable whist-player, and I knew there
w