in a very faint treble indeed, and looked
penitently at the cards.

Again the cards were shuffled, cut, and dealt, and the "plucked pigeon"
staked his last dollar upon them.

"The last button on Gabe's coat, and I cr--cr--; no, I'll be hamstrung
if I do!"

He lost this too, and, with as deep a curse as I ever heard, he rose
from the green board.

The apartment was very spacious, and on the ground floor. There was only
this one gaming table in it, and not many lookers-on besides myself.
Thinking the gaming was over, I turned to go out, but found the door
locked, and the key gone. There was evidently something in the wind. At
all events, I reflected, in ease of need, the windows are not very far
to the ground. I returned, and saw the winners dividing the spoil, and
the poor shorn "greenhorn," leaning over the back of their chairs,
staring intently at the money.

The notes were deliberately spread out one after another. Those which
the loser had staked were new, fresh from the press, he said, and they
were sorted into a heap distinct from the rest. They were two-dollar,
three-dollar, and five-dollar notes, from the Indiana Bank, and the Bank
of Columbus, in Ohio.

"I say, Ned, I don't think these notes are good," said one of the
winners, and examined them.

"I wish they were'nt, and I'd crow," cried out the loser, very
chop-fallen, at his elbow.

This simple speech lulled the suspicions of the counter, and he resumed
his counting. At last, as he took up the last note, and eying it keenly,
he exclaimed, in a most emphatic manner, "I'll be hanged if they _are_
genuine! They are forged!"

"No, they ain't!" replied the loser, quite as emphatically.

A very opprobrious epithet was now hurled at the latter. He, without
more ado, knocked down the speaker at a blow, capsized the table, which
put out the lights, and, in the next instant, darted out of the window,
while a bullet, fired from a pistol, cracked the pane of glass over his
head. He had leaped into the small court-yard, with a wooden paling
round it. The winners dashed toward the door, but found that the "green
one" had secured it.

When the three worthies were convinced that the door would not yield to
their efforts, and when they heard their "_victim_" galloping away, they
gave a laugh at the trick played them, and returned to the table.

"Strike a light, Bill, and let's pick up what notes have fallen. I have
nearly the whole lot in my pocket."

The l