small, and be content with a little profit.

"We had a bank-roll of $600--four from me and two from him. I was to
have two-thirds of the profits, because I risked two thirds of the
stuff.

"It was Thursday night we set to try it. Thursday was always my Jonah
day. I wanted to wait until Saturday, but he did n't want to wait that
long. I was to do the playing while he kept tab and told me what to do
each whirl.

"Well, we buys a stack of a hundred chips, and runs them up to two
hundred and fifty. I says, 'let's quit,' but he was stuck on pushing
our luck while it came our way. We played along for half an hour, and
hardly varied $50; then, all at once, we 'struck the slide,' and I had
to buy another stack. We lost that; bought another and lost it, and
stood in the hole $300.

"All the while we were playing the system, and I had a 'hunch' that if
we kept on it would pull us out. So I starts to buy another stack when
Kendall--his name was Arthur Kendall--stops me and says he wants to
quit. Quit, with half our money gone! I was so sore I could have
smashed him. And while we stood there arguing, without a nickel on the
board, the wheel was rollin' dead our way--enough to have put us ahead
of the game.

"I gave him his hundred, and told him to 'take it and chase himself'--I
was through with him. I stuck to the game until five in the morning.
They got every cent I had in the world.

"Well, I went to the hotel and went to bed, but I lay there wondering
how I was going to dig up the money to pay my bill, and give me a start
when my luck turned again. The longer I wondered the tougher it
seemed. Finally I ordered an absinthe frappe--it kind of gave me a new
idea. I 'd put up a song to my Uncle Giles, and try to make a little
'touch.'

"I had n't seen or heard of him for half a dozen years, but I thought
after all we had done for him, he could n't hardly lay down on his
nephew.

"Well, I wrote him a letter that would have brought tears to a pair of
glass eyes. Say, it was the literary effort of my life. Of course, I
did n't just stick to the facts. Then I goes down and gets me a little
breakfast, and begins to feel like myself again.

"This was Friday. Saturday my hotel bill was coming due. I had to
make a killin' somehow to get my trunk and clothes away.

"I chased myself from joint to joint, but I could n't get next to
anything. There was n't a thing I could hock nor no one that I could
'give th