fered me the $80, and wanted
me to return it. I told him I was not afraid of any man, but, said
I, "That woman has got her eyes open, and she may think I am your
partner." "No, George," says he, "You closed her eyes when you
were putting up that $1,000, and gave way to accommodate a lady;
she knows you are a gentleman, and would not have anything to do
with gamblers, except to do them the favor of returning money they
had won from suckers." His fine words lured me into the trap, so
I took the gold and found the lady. I told her that the gambler
was sorry he had allowed her to bet, and had requested me to return
the money. She looked at me a moment, with her eyes wide open,
and said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow by refusing to accept
the money, and may it be a sorrow to you gamblers all the days of
your lives."

THE JACK-FISH.

My old partner Bush and I would play the trains on the Jackson Road
out about forty miles above New Orleans, and then get off and wait
for a down train. Some times we would be compelled to get off
before we had gone that far; but, as a general thing, it would be
about that distance before we would get our work in on the suckers.
We would go up in the morning to a place called Manshak, and fish
until the train would come down in the evening. One day we were
fishing and had got some distance apart, when I saw a school of
large jack-fish coming down like lightning. I jumped up and grabbed
a pike pole that was lying near, slipped the noose over my hand
and let fly at them. I struck a big fellow, but he did not stop;
he kept right on and pulled me in after him. I yelled to Bush,
and he came running to assist me; he reached me a long pole, and
then pulled me out. The rope was still on my hand, and the fish
was on the pike pole, so we pulled him out, and he weighed about
sixty pounds. We took him down on the evening train, and had a
part of him broiled for our supper. Bush said it was the largest
fish he ever caught. I told him I caught it, when he said: "Why,
George, I caught you both."

RED AND BLACK.

I have been in some big games in my day, and have always been ready
to win a dollar or so whenever I saw a chance. Often in the flush
times after the war I have stood up in the bar-room and tossed up
a silver dollar or a twenty-dollar gold piece, "heads or tails,"
for from a hundred to five hundred dollars a throw, and have even
indulged in the innocent amusement of spit