XVI. Playing with Marked Cards

"I'm bothered about that young fellow," said Mellish early one morning, to the professional gambler, Pony Rowell.

"Why?"

"He comes here night after night, and he loses more than he can afford, I imagine. He has no income, so far as I can find out, except what he gets as salary, and it takes a mighty sight bigger salary than his to stand the strain he's putting on it."

"What is his business?"

"He is cashier in the Ninth National Bank. I don't know how much he gets, but it can't be enough to permit this sort of thing to go on."

Pony Rowell shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't think I would let it trouble me, if I were you, Mellish."

"Nevertheless it does. I have advised him to quit, but it is no use. If I tell the doorkeeper not to let him in here, he will merely go somewhere else where they are not so particular."

"I must confess I don't quite understand you, Mellish, long as I have known you. In your place, now, I would either give up keeping a gambling saloon or I would give up the moral reformation line of business. I wouldn't try to ride two horses of such different tempers at the same time."

"I've never tried to reform you, Pony," said Mellish, with reproach in his voice.

"No; I will give you credit for that much sense."

"It's all right with old stagers like you and me, Pony, but with a boy just beginning life, it is different. Now it struck me that you might be able to help me in this."

"Yes, I thought that was what you were leading up to," said Rowell, thrusting his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. "I'm no missionary, remember. What did you want me to do?"

"I wanted you to give him a sharp lesson. Couldn't you mark a pack of cards and get him to play high? Then, when you have taken all his ready money and landed him in debt to you so that he can't move, give him back his cash if he promises not to gamble again."

Rowell looked across at the subject of their conversation. "I don't think I would flatter him so much as to even stock the cards on him. I'll clean him out if you like. But it won't do any good, Mellish. Look at his eyes. The insanity of gambling is in them. I used to think if I had $100,000, I would quit. I'm old enough now to know that I wouldn't. I'd gamble if I had a million."

"I stopped after I was your age."

"Oh, yes, Mellish, you are the virtuous exception that proves the rule. You quit gambling the way the old woman kept tavern," and Rowell cast a glance over the busy room.

Mellish smiled somewhat grimly, then he sighed. "I wish I was out of it," he said. "But, anyhow, you think over what I've been talking about, and if you can see your way to giving him a