one case, you are sure to lose your cash,
while in the other you have a chance of winning some. I hold that all
kinds of gambling are bad, unless a man can easily afford to lose what
he stakes. The trouble is that gambling affects some people like
liquor. I knew a man once who----" but you can read the whole article if
you turn up the back numbers of the Argus.

Thompson told Mellish about McCrasky. Mellish was much interested, and
said he would like to meet the local editor. He thought the papers
should take more interest in the suppression of gambling dens than they
did, and for his part he said he would like to see them all stopped,
his own included. "Of course," he added, "I could shut up my shop, but
it would simply mean that someone else would open another, and I don't
think any man ever ran such a place fairer than I do."

McCrasky called on the chief of police, and introduced himself as the
local editor of the Argus.

"Oh," said the chief, "has Gorman gone, then?"

"I don't know about Gorman," said McCrasky; "the man I succeeded was
Finnigan. I believe he is in Cincinnati now."

When the chief learned the purport of the local editor's visit he
became very official and somewhat taciturn. He presumed that there were
gambling houses in the city. If there were, they were very quiet and no
complaints ever reached his ears. There were many things, he said, that
it was impossible to suppress, and the result of attempted suppression
was to drive the evil deeper down. He seemed to be in favor rather of
regulating, than of attempting the impossible; still, if McCrasky
brought him undoubted evidence that a gambling house was in operation,
he would consider it his duty to make a raid on it. He advised McCrasky
to go very cautiously about it, as the gamblers had doubtless many
friends who would give a tip and so frustrate a raid, perhaps letting
somebody in for damages. McCrasky said he would be careful.

Chance played into the hands of McCrasky and "blew in" on him a man who
little recked what he was doing when he entered the local editor's
room. Gus Hammerly, sport and man-about-town, dropped into the Argus
office late one night to bring news of an "event" to the sporting
editor. He knew his way about in the office, and, finding Murren was
not in, he left the item on his table. Then he wandered into the local
editor's room. The newspaper boys all liked Hammerly, and many a good
item they got from him. They never gave